
Class 

Book, 

Copyright}! . 



COFYRiGHT DEPOSIT. 



Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence 
of the disciples, which are not written in this book: 
hut these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus 
is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may 
have life in his name. 

—John 20. 30, 31. 



THE UNDERWORLD 
AND THE UPPER 



BY 

CHARLES A. STARR 

With an Introduction by 

The HON. WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 




NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM 



£,(.1 



Gopyright, 1912, by 
EATON & MAINS 



£CI.A30050I 



THE MEMORY OF MY SPIRITUAL FATHER, THE 
REV. SAMUEL HOPKINS HADLEY, TO WHOSE 
WISE COUNSEL AND LOVING REGARD I OWE 
MY ESCAPE FROM MANY PITFALLS DURING MY 
EARLY CHRISTIAN LIFE, WHOSE TESTIMONY- 
OPENED MY EYES TO THE LOVE OF THE 
MASTER FOR THE FALLEN, AND WHOSE GREAT 
HEART REACHED OUT AND MADE ME ONE 
OF HIS "BOYS," THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Preface ix 

Introduction xiii 

I. A Strong Arm Become Stronger 1 

II. An International Panhandler 11 

III. The Stowaway 22 

IV. A Frat House Confession 31 

V. "He First Findeth His Own Brother" 47 

VI. Simon Brought to Jesus 55 

VII. Neither Jew nor Gentile 63 

VIII. Midnight and a Park Bench 72 

IX. Under Two Flags 80 

X. A Man's Undoing 89 

XI. Up and Doing 106 

XII. Cowboy Baronet Turns Soldier 118 

XIII. Got What He Wanted 129 

XIV. A Life Sentence 138 

XV. Sunny Jim 149 

XVI. Sunshine 157 

XVII. Her New Husband 164 

XVIII. A Workhouse Valet 172 

XIX. Rebel, Then Regular 181 

XX. Arrows and Stripes 190 

XXI. A Matter of Politics 199 

XXII. Barroom to Bank 207 

XXIII. Tacks Versus Taxes 219 

XXIV. Bread Line to Breadwinner 229 

XXV. A Prison Apostle 236 

XXVI. Blind Eyes Made to See 244 



PREFACE 

The bringing together of these stories of 
salvation has been in contemplation for a long 
time. It has been the belief of the author 
that these illustrations from the "perpetual 
revival" will stimulate the Church to a deeper 
sense of its responsibility to the large numbers 
of unfortunate men and women who have 
drifted away from Christian homes to recruit 
the armies of tramps, criminals, and drunk- 
ards — all outcasts. 

The Methodist Church was the first denom- 
ination to give official recognition to rescue 
work, by establishing, through its New York 
City Missionary Society, the Hadley Rescue 
Hall, on the Bowery. There were many rescue 
missions when Wesley Hall — as it was first 
called — was opened in 1904, in what had been 
successively a beer garden, pool and gambling 
house, and dance hall ; but they were all under 
independent auspices. 

To the Rev. Samuel Hopkins Hadley, whose 
name the mission now bears, belongs the 
credit of establishing the mission, for to his 
persistence and to others who interested 
two laymen of means and others in the under- 

ix 



x PREFACE 

taking, may be ascribed the inauguration of 
the work. He has laid down his cross and 
taken the crown, but the work will remain as 
an enduring monument, not only in the 
mission itself and in the Old Jerry McAuley 
Water Street Mission, of which he was simul- 
taneously superintendent, but in the lives of 
hundreds of men and women now scattered 
broadcast over the face of the earth. There is 
promise that other denominations soon will 
follow the example set by the Methodist 
Church; interdenominational and undenomi- 
national missions are also multiplying, but 
not in ratio to the increase in the army of the 
"down-and-outs." 

The characters set forth in this volume are 
known to the author — many of them from the 
day of their redemption ; their testimonies are 
not overdrawn, but in many cases do not tell 
all the extremes to which sin has brought 
them. They are not intended as biography, 
nor written to catalogue crime and depravity. 
Each character has his phase of evil and his 
peculiar approach to salvation. Hundreds 
more of testimonies might be written, some of 
which possess even more startling features; 
but the book is not sent out to thrill the 
reader with the narration of crime and 
degradation, but the rather to lift up Him 



PREFACE xi 

who said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto me." 

Doubtless many will wish they might have 
a part in missionary endeavor which promises 
such glorious results. To such the oppor- 
tunity is open, for earnest, prevailing prayer 
is needed for the leaders and their work; 
many who need the offices of the missions do 
not know of their work, and by directing such 
to these places their salvation may be accom- 
plished; then there is the always acceptable 
help through generous gifts of money. 

If the Church generally, and Christians in 
their individual relations, can be interested in 
the salvation of the lost, and if the ministers 
and lay workers are stimulated to higher 
reaches of service, then this little volume will 
be worth while, and will have accomplished 
its purpose. 

Charles A. Stare. 

New York, January, 1912. 



INTRODUCTION 

I have read a number of the stories in Mr. 
Starr's "The Underworld and the Upper," 
and am pleased to commend the general sub- 
ject and Mr. Starr's manner of treating it. 
If I can judge by the effect that a similar book 
— "Twice Born Men" — produced on me and 
on others with whom I have conversed, there 
is a demand for such information as this book 
furnishes. 

Those who have not visited the slums of a 
great city have no idea of the number of the 
wrecks that float about on their eddying cur- 
rents. The average man and woman have 
little conception of the shameless depths to 
which drink carries its victims; they do not 
know to how many vices it is akin, and they 
do not realize how hard it is for the fallen to 
regain an honorable place among their fellows. 

"The Underworld and the Upper" gives a 
few glimpses — a few only of the multitude that 
might be given — of the phases of life seen by 
those who are devoting themselves to rescue 
work. I say but a few, for at one meeting 
at Hadley Rescue Hall which I attended, 
nearly a dozen men gave experiences which 

xiii 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

ran the entire gamut of sin and sorrow, and 
more than a dozen rose for prayers. The 
contrast between the two groups was striking : 
the prodigals had all but forfeited their right 
to claim a likeness to the Creator, while in 
the reformed the image had been restored. 
Both groups showed the need of One who can 
"save to the uttermost," and the reformed 
were living miracles. They testified to Christ's 
continuing power to regenerate; and the 
power to convert a polluted heart into a 
spring overflowing with love — a worse than 
worthless existence into a life of service — is 
as mysterious as the power that nineteen 
hundred years ago opened the eyes of the 
blind, unstopped the ears of the deaf, and 
called back the spirit from the grave. 

But the book will not only give renewed 
inspiration and new illustrations to those 
engaged in Christian work, but it will hold 
out hope to those who have been cast off by 
friends and relatives; to these it may bring 
a knowledge of Him "who sticketh closer than 
a brother." It may mean life to some in 
despair to know anew that man cannot fix a 
limit to God's pardoning power or close the 
door of mercy on a soul. 

Allow me, then, to bespeak for "The Under- 
world and the Upper" a reception and a read- 



INTRODUCTION xv 

ing. I am sure it will prove helpful to both 
those who desire to serve and those who need 
assistance. 

I have recently read a poem by Walter 
Malone which is so in harmony with the lesson 
taught in "The Underworld and the Upper" 
that I venture to conclude with it. It is a 
splendid word of cheer. 

Opportunity 1 
They do me wrong who say I come no more 

When once I knock and fail to find you in; 
For every day I stand outside your door, 

And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win. 

Wail not for precious chances past away, 

Weep not for golden ages on the wane! 
Each night I burn the records of the day — 

At sunrise every soul is born again! 

Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped, 
To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb; 

My judgments seal the dead past with its dead, 
But never bind a moment yet to come. 

Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep; 

I lend my arm to all who say "I can!" 
No shame-faced outcast ever sank so deep 

But yet might rise and be again a man! 

Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast? 

Dost reel from righteous Retribution's blow? 
Then turn from blotted archives of the past, 

And find the future's pages white as snow. 



Songs of East and West, by Walter Malone. 



XVI 



INTRODUCTION 



Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell; 

Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven; 
Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell, 

Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven. 




CHAPTER I 
A Strong Arm Become Stronger 

To Teddy the coming of a mission to the 
Bowery was a matter of life and death. True, 
there had been missions before that on the 
Bowery, and others came at a later date, but 
this mission really invaded Teddy as much as 
it did the Bowery. What right had a mission 
to start up alongside the gruesome Suicide 
Hall? 

The block in which Christians planted the 
enterprise, which was in time destined to 
transform the entire Bowery, seemed to 
belong to Teddy. He had been born a few 
blocks away, it is true, but he had lived in it, 
or had been identified with the block for so 
long that it seemed as though it were all his. 
He had been a newsboy on one corner, had 
been employed at one time or another in one 
of the resorts on two sides of the block, and, 
when the mission arrived, he was doorman in 
another questionable place. He knew every 
nook and corner of the block, with its "get- 
aways" for those who would evade the police; 
he knew all the crooked hallways and secret 
doors of the very building in which the 

l 



2 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

mission was located. When its founders 
were inspecting the dark and forbidding 
recesses of the building before they had 
acquired it, they were themselves being in- 
spected by Teddy, who had entered the build- 
ing by the roof "to see what was going on." 

It had been a dance hall for the elite of the 
section at one time; it had been a "respect- 
able" beer garden, with a concert stage, retro- 
grading into a resort for evil characters and 
vile deeds. There were a score of rooms where 
games of chance might be found in operation 
at once; still in place were the bars which 
had kept the police from raiding the poolroom 
which succeeded the concert garden. The 
little half-oval apertures in the hall were still 
there too. That was where the winner of a 
bet on the races put in his ticket to the cashier, 
whom he could not see, and obtained his win- 
nings. What sort of a place was that for a 
mission ! 

"I'll have to go in and look those guys 
over," said Teddy, when the painter and car- 
penter were changing the dive into a gospel 
mission. He was there the first night and 
for many nights thereafter. You could see 
him glide into a rear seat like an apparition ; 
before the invitation was given he would glide 
out in the same uncanny way ere one of the 



A STRONG ARM YOUTH 3 

workers could reach him. He was attracted, 
this child of the underworld, but he was as 
suspicious as a guilty crook. 

Some of the wiser ones did not try to reach 
him, but left the shy one to a Higher Worker, 
who knows the way to the Bowery heart, as 
well as to the one nurtured amid more auspi- 
cious influences. But once in a while they 
found opportunity to get a hand on his 
shoulder, to make him feel at home, or to say 
a kind word, and, in time, to tell him of the 
love of the Master for Bowery boys. To such 
he invariably shook his head. He had been 
led to admit that his mother had told him 
about Jesus in childhood, but that he long 
since had forgotten all about it. 

Teddy was weighing the case carefully. 
Schooled in the sharp practices of the under- 
world, he mistrusted everyone not proven to 
be "square." He took no one at his own esti- 
mate. The testimonies of the converts sounded 
so wonderful that he found himself unable to 
believe them. 

"If that's all true, I wish I could be like 
that," he said to himself; then he reflected 
that it couldn't be true. 

Meanwhile, he was watching those men. 
Many nights converts were shadowed by the 
silent one. Alas ! he found many as he feared 



4 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

they would be, not living on the outside what 
they professed within the mission. Some of 
them, however, stood the acid test of his 
sleuthing. They were pure gold from the 
fire. 

"Those guys is all right," he said to one 
worker; "wish't / was." 

He continued to draw his meager pay for 
doing the dirty work for a man whose "pull" 
at headquarters permitted him to continue his 
questionable resort. 

Teddy was not a bad young man ; there was 
no vicious element in him when the rough 
bark was peeled off. He was a creature of 
environment. All of his playmates had grown 
up to be tough, and he was no different. 
Fighting all the while for life against every- 
one else, why should he not learn all their 
tough ways — and go a little farther, if he 
could? 

His godly mother advised him to be good, 
and tried to get him started right, but he chose 
the tough life. If there was a prize fight 
about the neighborhood, as was frequent in 
the days when the noted dives were kept by 
ex-sluggers, Teddy was there with his friends. 
They would all emulate the fight in some back 
room until all had more or less skill and some 
hitting ability. Teddy had a natural quick- 



A STRONG ARM YOUTH 5 

ness and learned to hit a sudden and heavy 
blow. 

It was a very convenient blow when his 
victim called for the police, because he 
objected to the loss of his wallet, or watch, or 
diamonds. This was not what Teddy and his 
tough companions named them. They had a 
lingo for their underworld operations, which 
the police were not supposed to know, and as 
the latter are close students of languages — 
such as are used by crooks — the vocabulary 
was changing constantly. 

The youth had developed into a gangster. 
When he worked it was a blind to conceal 
from the police his real business, which was 
to make money without work. It was so easy 
to follow the half-drunken man with money 
or valuables into a dark spot on a side street, 
to place an arm under his chin, and shove the 
man, half choked, into a doorway; it was the 
work of an instant for deft fingers to remove 
everything from his pockets that promised 
ready cash and then shove the fellow out on 
the sidewalk, with a blow which confused him. 
When he recovered his senses enough to cry 
for the police the strong-arm youths were out 
of sight. 

Others of the gang were expert in pick- 
ing pockets. Teddy knew the psychological 



6 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

moment to land a blow in the victim's eye, if 
he discovered the theft, that in the confusion 
the confederates might escape; so he was a 
good assistant in this line too. 

At one period of his career he was a "lobby- 
gow" in Chinatown, carrying messages, prin- 
cipally for the "white wives" of the China- 
men. Here he learned the ways of the almond- 
eyes, with their gambling and policy, and 
opium and cocaine-selling. He also met there 
many a man whose "roll" was entirely dis- 
proportionate to his wisdom, and usually the 
"roll" changed ownership. 

This was his state when he came to the mis- 
sion. One New Year's Eve a watchnight 
service was to be held. Teddy had been a 
regular visitor for many months, still unyield- 
ing, but with a battle raging within him be- 
tween good and evil which no one suspected. 
He came to see what a watchnight service was 
like, for he never had heard of one before. 
After a season of singing and testimony all 
the converts were asked to gather at the plat- 
form to pray out the old year and in the new. 

This was something new; usually the men 
Teddy knew would get drunk to celebrate the 
event, but here were men praying! When 
a plea was made for men to start the year 
right, Teddy refused to yield, but just before 



A STRONG ARM YOUTH 7 

the bells tolled the midnight hour Satan met 
with a severe defeat, for Teddy arose from his 
seat and started to join the others at the altar. 
He was met with open arms all along the way, 
and, amid the din from without which told of 
a new year born, a shout arose, heard above 
it all, and it told of a soul reborn. 

The child of the streets was metamorphosed 
into a child of the King in a very short time, 
with a childlike faith that was a benediction 
to others on the firing line. Of course he gave 
up his job in the dive forthwith. Then he 
found out that his speech needed mending to 
conform to his new profession. He began to 
pray — and to watch — and awoke one night to 
a realization that he did not want to use 
wrong words any more and actually was not 
doing so. Other inclinations of the past 
dropped away in the same manner. He told 
one of his new friends after a time: "I saw a 
man down the street last night with a 'rock' 
as big as a dime. I could have taken it easily, 
but somehow I didn't do it. I don't under- 
stand what has come over me; I didn't want 
his diamond. I don't understand it." 

It had not dawned upon him until his friend 
explained how old things pass away and all 
things become new to him who accepts Jesus ; 
that this was why he no longer wanted to 



8 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

steal. His testimony thereafter rang afresh 
as he told how God had taken away the desire 
to steal. A little while later he found that he 
no longer wanted to use his fistic skill to right 
his own or his neighbor's wrongs. Indeed, the 
hold-up child of the Bowery underworld had 
been transformed. From striving after "easy 
money" he had begun to work honestly at a 
trade, and became far happier than he had 
thought possible. 

Others than the converts at the mission saw 
the change, however. Teddy walking down 
the Bowery, or some other East Side street 
where he was known, became a living epistle 
known and read of all men. His associates 
could not understand what had caused the 
change until Teddy told them it was Jesus, 
his new Friend ; even then they wondered. 

His old boss at the saloon wondered too. 
He had known Teddy for many years, and 
had he heard that the young man had been 
sent to jail he would have manifested no sur- 
prise. But to be changed into a clean and 
straight fellow, as different from his former 
self as the day is from night, was another 
thing. 

He was forced to believe there was some- 
thing in the religion he did not understand. 
He had scoffed at it, but there was Teddy. 



A STRONG ARM YOUTH 9 

There were many insincere Christians; but 
Teddy, he wasn't. He knew that Teddy was 
not a fakir; that while he might parry or 
evade questioning, he would not lie when it 
came to the test, in the old life. Therefore he 
was sure that there was nothing false about 
the new life. And it stood before him and 
troubled him more than he liked to admit. 

One night, in the shadow of his side-door 
vestibule, where he was a lookout, because his 
saloon was open after hours, and men and 
women were entering the Raines law resort, 
he confessed that Teddy puzzled him and had 
him thinking very hard. 

"I wish I could get out of this business," 
he said; "it don't seem right any more. But 
what is a man to do? Here I have all my 
money in this business and I can't get out. 
But isn't it great the way Teddy is holding 
out?" 

That was the secret; Teddy had troubled 
him. Scarce a word he spoke about it to his 
former associates, but his life told the story 
of salvation as lips could not. 

The saloon man has been lured within the 
mission more than once, and the workers do 
not think it beyond the limits of faith to 
expect his conversion some day. If it ever 
comes, it will not be from the missionary's 



10 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

word or works, nor from what the other con- 
verts have to say; these may all have their 
part in the work of grace, but the chief factor 
will be a sermon writ in flesh and blood in 
the person of Teddy. 

Teddy's old mother lived long enough to 
know of the wonderful change in her boy and 
to rejoice therein. Now Teddy has but two 
objects in life, to meet his dear old mother 
again one day, and to help others into the 
kingdom. 

"If anyone had ever told me I would go to 
work at a trade and quit the crooked life," he 
said one night, "I would have told him he was 
'nutty.' " 

But the "strong arm" of the underworld 
has become the far stronger one of the upper; 
it is strong enough to labor honestly now; it 
is strong enough to raise a fallen brother. 



CHAPTER II 

An International Panhandler 

"Panhandling," in the language of the 
underworld, originally meant the class of 
begging followed by the man or woman whose 
particular "graft" was to shove out a small 
tin pan before those passings elevated railroad 
stations or other much frequented places. 
This distinguished them from the ones who 
"sold" lead pencils, threw "sympathy fits" in 
the crowd, or plied one of the hundred other 
means of gaining a living without working 
which are to be found in any large city. It 
has come to mean almost any means of acquir- 
ing money "by the wits," as contrasted with 
criminal acts. 

"Panhandler" was the title of a stalwart 
man who called at the American Embassy in 
London during the term of the late Thomas 
F. Bayard as Minister to the Court of Saint 
James. 

"Mr. Bayard, I am an American and I am 
in distress. I am a native of Virginia. You 
have noticed that the name on my card is that 
of a former President. He was my grand- 
father. I am named after an ancestor of my 
11 



12 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

mother, who was chaplain to George Washing- 
ton during the winter of Valley Forge. I 
have met with bad luck in London and I want 
to get home. Will you help me?" 

This was the suave self-introduction of the 
stranger. It was followed by a story of 
twenty years of globe-trotting, couched in 
words that stamped the speaker as a man of 
education. The dark side of the twenty years 
was not referred to, neither was the fact that 
the "bad luck" experienced was only that his 
purse was not of equal extent with the drink 
supply of England and the Continent. He 
got the money, as he had from every other 
American representative with whom he had 
come in contact in the latter half of the twenty 
years; likewise from every American tourist 
who could be deceived by his blandishments. 

He was not a tramp, though it was no 
novelty for him to "take the road." He was 
too well dressed for a tramp, and he would 
work — actually preferred to, between sprees 
— and no one yet has discovered a real tramp 
with a desire to labor, except it be to escape 
a severer punishment, and the emergency 
must be stringent. 

If you had asked him why he was a wan- 
derer, the answer probably would have been 
that he wanted to see the world. In his heart 



AN INTERNATIONAL PANHANDLER 13 

he knew that was not the reason, but he could 
not have explained the underlying principle 
of the unrest which impelled him to move on 
and on. He did not know that he was seeking 
rest, peace of heart; how could he know that 
he craved a thing of which he had no concep- 
tion? He called it wanderlust; it was more 
than that. It was soul hunger and thirst 
— not the thirst which caused his heavy and 
constant drinking, but that which only a 
draught of the living waters can assuage. 

Thousands of men are drifting along the 
world arteries with no greater realization of 
the reason. On, on, always going somewhere, 
but never arriving; finding one town after 
another has no place for them, soon they take 
the "blind baggage" or car roof to the next 
place, only to repeat the experience there. 

We have been slow to comprehend what is 
called the "tramp nuisance." We have studied 
it from almost every other angle, but we have 
failed to see a spiritual truth exemplified in 
the hobo, and we have failed to apply, except 
in incipient cases, the soul remedy, the only 
one of avail. It is not an evil to be solved by 
philosophy, or philanthropy, by soup-houses, 
or workhouses, or by prisons, but by applied 
theology. We must strike deeper to find the 
root of this disease of the body politic, and 



14 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

must understand the yearning of a soul 
which sends him searching up and down the 
earth for that which Jesus Christ alone can 
give. There is need of an "Apostle to the 
Wanderer/' to bear him the message of salva- 
tion as a satisfaction for that unutterable 
yearning. Millionaires who have become 
hobos that they might study causes have 
brought no solution of the tramp question; 
humble missionaries have seen it solved num- 
berless times. 

Native of the Old Dominion, reared in 
luxury, an "F. F. V." in his own right, the 
childhood and youth of Clarke gave no 
promise of life-wreck. From the ancestral 
mansion to the pauper's couch on the floor of 
a pleasure pavilion in a public park is a far 
reach, undreamed of in those days; but sin 
drives so many beloved sons into the far 
country. 

While attending a private school in his 
native State, with other students he visited 
the Monticello home of Thomas Jefferson. 
There a drink of whisky was offered the lad — 
his first. He drank it with no thought that 
he would become a drunkard, or that forty- 
two years later he would be seeking a cure, 
and that he would find the only one. 

In college he kept up the hot pace of the 



AN INTERNATIONAL PANHANDLER 15 

fastest set. He had money and a strong con- 
stitution, and he emerged from college with a 
fixed habit. He still maintained his respecta- 
bility, the high standing of his family cover- 
ing his faults. 

After the death of his father a large sum of 
money came to him. It was the signal for 
beginning a debauch which lasted for two 
years. Wine, fast company, luxury, and 
prodigality all contributed to the wreck which 
came at the end of that period, when Clarke 
found that he was broke. 

Most persons start to see the world when 
the purse is corpulent. The reverse stimu- 
lated Clarke to that intent. He worked, 
"bummed," or panhandled his way around the 
world five times. Sometimes he was upon the 
pinnacle of prosperity; more often he was on 
the toboggan of defeat; always he was drop- 
ping lower in the social scale and that scale 
of self-respect by which one measures his own 
character. 

The international tramp sometimes may 
seem to be, but actually very seldom is, in a 
hurry. With more time than money at his 
disposal, strange scenes allure him until the 
novelty wears off ; then it is on to the pursuit 
of the will-o'-the-wisp — something new — once 
more. So it was with Clarke; he became as 



16 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

familiar with Whitechapel haunts in London, 
with the Latin Quarter of Paris, the fan-tan 
joints of Hong Kong, the Boca of Buenos 
Ayres, or the Levee of Chicago and China- 
town of San Francisco, as with the Bowery 
of New York, and he was at home in any of 
them. 

In the bush country of Australia he became 
a "swagga" of the land ; he earned and begged 
his way among the swarms of beggars of 
Bamboo Square and Flag Street, in Calcutta. 
Like Paul, but with different purpose, might 
he have said, "I am become all things to all 
men." Strangely, he never got into jail. 
They were plenty enough along the route ; this 
universal institution had not lacked keepers 
nor incentive for utilizing their services. Per- 
haps it was his predisposition to work that 
militated to keep Clarke out of jail. 

A rugged constitution refused to be 
wrecked by drink and neglect; abused mental 
powers came out clear from debauch after 
debauch. Sober, he preferred to work ; drunk, 
he could not or would not work, and no 
person was high enough to escape his persua- 
sive begging. 

One day he saw an American flag in the 
harbor of a far-off quarter of the globe and it 
thrilled him more than anything he had seen 



AN INTERNATIONAL PANHANDLER 17 

in years. He was sober at the time and he 
resolved to see his old home again. It was 
on the homestretch of this jaunt that his lofti- 
est panhandling was accomplished, including 
the incident related. Foreign representatives 
of the United States furnished him a large 
part of the passage money to New York. 

Arriving with but a few dollars, he sought 
and obtained work, taking the first thing 
which offered itself. As before, pay day was 
the signal for a spree. In foreign lands, 
where pay day comes once a quarter, he had 
been sober that long at a stretch. Where pay 
day came with Saturday night, Sunday found 
him maudlin — and broke — as a rule; gener- 
ally, Monday or Tuesday he found a new job. 
Almost everything dignified with the name of 
labor fell to his lot, until there came a time 
when all avenues of employment were closed 
because of his habits and condition. Nor 
could he put on "a front" and beg. His 
friends understood him too well to be taken 
in by his blandishments ; his stories lost their 
novelty, his appeals their force. 

And none but the ransomed ever knew 

How deep were the waters crossed, 
Or how dark the night that the Lord passed through — 

No one has been able to picture adequately 
the despair which engulfs a man when he first 



18 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

feels himself lost. He does not come to that 
realization suddenly, though it always startles 
him. It has been seeping through the brain 
tissues, spurring at times an effort to escape 
the vortex into which consciousness tells him 
he is being drawn; but there is always hope 
ahead. Something will turn up, surely ! 

One day there flashes upon him the feeling 
which came to the prodigal son out among the 
swine. No man gave unto him! If he 
remember that story, perchance he will say: 
"Well, that fellow was not so badly off as I 
am ; at least he had a job. No one wants me." 
Happy the man who remembers more — of the 
Father and his welcome; w T ho simulates the 
prodigal and says, "I will arise and go unto 
my Father." Too often he thinks he will, but 
what he says is, "0, I never could face that 
brother." 

Without money, friends, or work, if Clarke 
thought at all, it was to wonder how long 
the police would allow him to occupy a park 
bench at night, or the pavilion floor if it 
rained or snowed, or to wonder where he could 
get the nickel for a drink — and the free lunch. 
Sodden with drink, his strong frame impover- 
ished, who would have given even a paltry 
dollar for the creature which lay prone on the 
stone floor of the pavilion, one of a hundred 



AN INTERNATIONAL PANHANDLER 19 

once strong men, each more hopeless than his 
fellow, if that be possible? 

Shambling about in the day, scanning the 
faces of the throng to find one of charitable 
mien; slinking into the cover of darkness at 
night to evade the too close espionage of the 
police — O, the wretchedness of it all! Is 
there hope for such as these? Are they of the 
"whosoever"? 

One day Clarke missed a drink. "No man 
gave unto him" again. Soberness was not a 
fault but a necessity. From some deep recess 
of memory came a story once heard in a mis- 
sion. Thirty years before, then a young 
Southern swell, he had piloted a party of 
ladies through the slums to a mission near 
the water front. Jerry McAuley had spoken, 
and then "Slippery Pete" had told how he was 
rescued from a life of crime. The stories had 
persisted, particularly the latter, and it was 
making him think on this hopeless day. 

"I'll go down and see if that mission is still 
there," he said to himself. "Maybe I'll hear 
another story like that." 

He heard a dozen ; thank God that men who 
have come out of the fire are eager to tell the 
story of their redemption. 

"Maybe there is & chance," he said; "I'll 
try." 



20 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

With other "bums" he knelt and prayed. 
Praying, he felt the presence of Jesus Christ 
and heard him whisper of pardon. 

There was a struggle for a time, for the 
devil was reluctant to lose so faithful a serv- 
ant. But the God of all peace strengthened 
him in the inner man and kept him from 
being utterly cast down by temptations. His 
first job was as bed-maker in a Bowery lodg- 
ing house, and paid seventy-five cents a day 
and lodging. Faithfulness won promotion to 
a clerkship at seven dollars a week and room. 
Then, as manhood returned, other opportu- 
nities opened. He became a painter in a hos- 
pital where he had been an alcoholic patient 
before. 

One day he met an old-time friend whom 
he had "bummed" for the price of a drink 
many times. That man saw the change 
wrought by the gospel writ clear in his coun- 
tenance, heard the story of the transformation, 
and, eager to help on the work which God had 
started, he told Clarke to come and see him. 
First as porter, then as superintendent of a 
big business block in the center of the city, 
the world tramp and panhandler of ambas- 
sadors came back to his own. 

Night after night in some place he tells the 
story of his downfall and uprising, for he has 



AN INTERNATIONAL PANHANDLER 21 

passed from the degree "Joy of salvation" to 
that of "Joy of service," and gladly takes up 
his cross. The men beside whom he slept in 
the park believe in him and give credit to the 
God who saved him. 

Several years after his conversion Clarke 
forsook worldly occupation, that he might 
have more time to speak for his Master, and 
now is an evangelist, with a message to all, 
but especially to the lost. 

The once proud son of the South has found 
a new country, of which he is proud — the 
Kingdom of Peace. Pride of birth? Yes, of 
the new birth. Of family? Is he not adopted 
as an heir to a throne? Yet he is one of the 
humblest men about the mission, and in this 
others see the sure sign of his sonship. 



CHAPTEE III 

The Stowaway 

Whisky had made Stanley a stowaway on 
an Atlantic steamship. His family had sent 
him money to travel in the cabin, but the ship 
did not sail for twenty-four hours ; with a com- 
panion he went to get a drink, took many, and 
when the hour of departure arrived had no 
money for passage. So he stowed away, 
appearing, when the ship was well on her voy- 
age, half starved and parched. The captain 
had no use for a stowaway, but he had work 
for Stanley and his companion when they dis- 
covered themselves. The ship had a short 
time before been under impress to carry 
supplies to the British troops, and had taken 
a cargo of flour to South Africa and then a 
cargo of coal for the battleships. Between 
the two the hold was incrusted with a thick 
cake of mingled flour and coal dust, baked 
hard by the heat of the hold. Stanley and his 
partner were ordered to scrape the sides. It 
was hard work, but they got across, which was 
the main thing they desired; also they were 
fed. 

Stanley had been sent to England by his 

22 



THE STOWAWAY 23 

wife and family because he was coming home 
drunk constantly and demanding money. He 
had been a drunkard for several years, so 
debauched that he could not be harbored by 
them, and went to the house only when he 
wanted money. Patience had vanished, and 
his wife told him she would send him to any 
other country he desired and forward regular 
remittances to him if he would only remain 
there. He had chosen England. 

When the remittances came they were 
quickly squandered in the alehouses; until 
another arrived Stanley kept himself in drinks 
and an occasional meal by small jobs he was 
able to pick up. After a time the remittances 
ceased and he became a tramp. In England 
the tramp has no such easy time as is per- 
mitted him in America. He is looked upon 
with suspicion everywhere and few are chari- 
table enough to feed him. It is usually a 
struggle to feed those in the home, without 
giving to the rough-visaged stranger at the 
door. A curse more often than a crust is his 
portion. 

Stanley had found some work in the hop 
fields and elsewhere in the farm districts, but 
home labor had first call, and where there 
always is an overplus the foreigner stands 
little chance of securing work. Consequently, 



24 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

he frequently had to apply at the workhouses 
for food and shelter. He earned all that he 
received, for picking oakum or other work is 
required, and the stint is not a trifling one. 

On one occasion he had sat in a hall in one 
of the cities where he heard that "cobs" of 
bread were given to all who applied. Three 
hours were spent in addresses, intended to 
point the audience to a better life. Stanley 
was starving, almost, and so tired that he slept 
through most of the meeting; he roused up to 
hear that there was a shortage of bread and 
that all able-bodied men must pass out un- 
satisfied, so that the crippled or otherwise 
infirm might be supplied. Stanley had 
strength in spite of his starving condition, 
and he sadly left the place. 

In desperation he finally begged the mate- 
rials and wrote his wife of his condition, asking 
that money be sent for the return passage, 
promising on his part that he would keep 
away from her when he reached America. 
The money had been sent. 

Stanley had been reared tenderly. The 
home was one of sesthetic influences, for his 
father, what time he had to spare from the 
bank, indulged himself with his books and 
with brush and canvas, with which he had con- 
siderable skill and local renown. He was also 



THE STOWAWAY 25 

a fisherman and wrote much of fish life and 
fishing. Both parents were Christians, and 
the children were brought under the influence 
of the Church in infancy. 

When but sixteen Stanley had taken his 
first drink in a saloon. He was out with a 
party of his associates, who initiated him that 
night as "one of the boys." In the course of 
time the desire to shine in that capacity rose 
higher and higher, until his one ambition was 
that he should be able to drink more than any 
one of his companions — which ambition was 
gratified. Then came gambling with cards 
and on horse races and other forms of sin, 
which led to debauchery and profligacy and 
ruin. 

He had been put in the bank as a junior, 
eventually rising to be a bookkeeper; but all 
the time habits were being formed which were 
to dominate the life for years. "Seeing life" 
was what he called the trips to the dens of 
vice in the great city. He became familiar 
with the phases of "life" seen in the low dance 
halls and dives, which were then scattered 
over the lower half of the city and flourished 
without molestation, some of them being old 
enough and notorious enough to have an inter- 
national reputation. 

The young bank clerk had a liberal salary, 



26 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

but he was always in debt because of his 
habits, which finally caused him to lose his 
place at the bank. Stanley saw whither he 
was drifting and resolved to end his dissipa- 
tion. As a part of this plan he married a 
godly young woman whom he had known from 
his school days ; on the night of their wedding 
he imbibed freely, and for the first time the 
bride learned of his drinking habit. He prom- 
ised her he would quit, but the influence of his 
companions was too much for his good resolu- 
tions and in a short time he drank harder 
than ever. 

Of course he could not hold a position very 
long, though he tried many times to change 
his mode of life. The toboggan path is steep 
to such, and the end is disaster. 

He had come naturally by a fine tenor voice, 
for both parents were choir singers, and 
Stanley became a soloist of reputation, add- 
ing to his income by choir and concert work. 
Drink and cigarettes and disregard of his 
vocal organs during his sprees obliged him at 
last to give up his singing. 

The time came when his wife, who had 
nursed and fed and clothed him after repeated 
debauches, felt that it was useless to try to 
help him any longer, and Stanley was shipped 
away. 



THE STOWAWAY 27 

The first day he was off the ship on the 
return he had found several friends, and they 
had provided him with the means to become 
very much intoxicated. He wanted to go 
home as usual. A companion took him to the 
home in the suburbs, stood him against the 
door and rang the bell. 

The wife, though almost overcome when 
she saw the terrible condition of Stanley, took 
him in, nursed him back to health, fitted him 
out with presentable clothing, and gave him 
money to travel to another city to apply for 
a job being held open for him. He tarried by 
the way, drinking, and when his destination 
was reached, he found the job was gone — they 
had given up hope of seeing him. 

Stanley's money went in a few days, his 
clothing was pawned, and the money was 
spent for drink. He had been singing in the 
dives along the water front for drinks and a 
chance at the free lunch counter, and one 
night went to bed in a sailors' lodging house. 
When he awoke to consciousness he was in 
a shipping office, his name attached to articles 
which bound him to go with an oyster dredger 
to the beds down the bay. In the shipping 
office he and others who had been shanghaied 
were kept stupefied with drink; what was 
called "whisky" was kept in a bucket, in 



28 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

which was a tin dipper and all the men need 
do to get a drink was to help themselves. 

In this condition Stanley was sent aboard 
the dredger and he was far down the bay when 
he awoke. This method of shanghaiing men 
after filling them with drink is still in opera- 
tion in some ports; though efforts have been 
made to break up the practice. 

Stanley froze his feet during one cold snap, 
and was set ashore with money enough to 
enable him to reach a hospital. When he was 
well he came North again, and at an address- 
ing establishment he made enough to provide 
lodging, drinks, and — sometimes* — meals. 

The addressing establishment, where en- 
velopes and wrappers are given a name and 
street address from a prepared list or from city 
directories, has kept many a drunkard in 
drinks and furnished a bare existence for 
down-and-out mankind. At seventy-five cents 
to one dollar a thousand from a dollar to a 
dollar and a half a day can be made when there 
is work. Many a former drunkard too has 
obtained a new start in life. A successful 
author of the present day began to remake 
life in one such place; likewise a man who 
has attained some prominence in Methodist 
affairs; and numerous cases might be cited. 
When you receive the circular and toss the 



THE STOWAWAY 29 

envelope carelessly aside, breathe a prayer for 
the man who addressed it. He may be grop- 
ing in darkness; he may be striving to reach 
the light. 

Stanley's love of music was the instrument 
God used to bring him to himself. One night 
he went into a mission to hear the singing, 
which one of his chums said was exceptional. 
When he sat down they were singing "Bring 
Peace to My Soul To-day." 

"Can there be such a thing as peace?" he 
pondered ; "certainly I have not had any peace 
for so long that I can hardly remember it." 

He heard the stirring testimony of a man 
who had wandered about like himself, and a 
score of others who duplicated parts of his 
experience, and when the invitation hymn was 
started he was ready to capitulate. They 
sang, 

" I've wandered far away from God, 
Now I'm coming home," 

and home he came; and the God of all peace 
brought peace and pardon to his soul, and his 
wanderings were over. 

He was destined to be tested of God. When 
his efforts to secure employment away from 
the old surroundings had proven futile, in 
sheer desperation he shipped to a Southern 
railroad camp, never dreaming of the hard- 



30 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

ships before him. When he could endure it no 
longer he walked — most of the way — back to 
the North and made his way to the mission. 

In less than a year from his conversion he 
had convinced his wife that the change was 
permanent, and for a number of years they 
have been together with their son, whose 
twenty-first birthday fell on the night Stanley 
found himself, a fact that had much to do 
with breaking up the stony heart for the min- 
istration of the Spirit. 

After an unusual struggle to rise again, he 
secured a splendid position, and though ill- 
ness and other troubles have oppressed him, 
he would not surrender his peaceful, happy 
home life for all that the world has to offer. 
He never lost the desire to drink, but God gave 
him the strength to win out, so that it has not 
regained mastery over him. 

His voice has been restored gradually, and 
rings out in songs of salvation instead of the 
melodies with which he once earned drinks 
and a welcome in the low dives. 

Shipped now in the Old Ship Zion, he is 
earning his passage once more, though not as 
a stowaway, and one day expects to be dis- 
charged in the port of the Homeland. 



CHAPTER IV 
A Frat House Confession 

"Believe me, fellows, I've played the game ; 
it isn't worth the candle." 

In the center of a group of young college 
men in the "frat" house of an Eastern uni- 
versity, reclining with them among the pillows 
in a cozy corner, sat a handsome young man, 
whose clean-cut visage betokened shrewdness 
and whose manner and speech gave evidence 
of refinement. He was talking earnestly with 
the members of the group, one or two of whom 
had evidently been indulging in recent dis- 
sipation, shown in flushed faces and disor- 
dered apparel. A slight discoloration of one 
eye of a slender youth gave "color" to the 
scene; shamefaced, the eyes of several of the 
party sought the rug, and all were thinking 
deeply and without remark. 

There had been a supper. Wine had passed 
the lips of the slender youth for the first time ; 
all had indulged enough to fire the boisterous 
spirit, and then had followed a "night of it." 
It was morning now and remorse was written 
on every brow. They had just heard that the 
winecup and the royster were not the highest 

31 



32 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

goal for a student. They had heard it from 
the lips of a college man, together with a story 
which told them that the speaker knew 
whereof he spoke. 

He had recalled a similar occasion, while 
attending a Southern university, when his 
first drink of wine was taken; then he had 
sketched rapidly before their vision the ease 
with which he had gradated to the casual, 
then the moderate drinker, then to the fixed 
habit, on down until, a tramp, he had landed 
in a large city without a penny, reduced to 
sleeping in parks; homeless, friendless, and 
hopeless. 

He had come of a Southern family of proud 
lineage. The blood of a Eevolutionary gen- 
eral mingled in his veins with that of a man 
who will be remembered as long as the govern- 
ment school he founded. He was the cousin of 
a President of the United States. His father 
a lawyer-orator known outside the State 
where he practiced; his mother a sweet-voiced 
Christian woman with all the graces and 
beauty of the Southron ; his home an ancestral 
mansion set beneath centuries-old trees; his 
every want supplied — surely there must be 
some mistake about that park bench — about 
the tramp! 

There were heartburnings and heart-search- 



A FRAT HOUSE CONFESSION 33 

ings as the story unfolded. When did the 
story of sin — and salvation — ever fail to thrill 
and to provoke introspection? The mother 
had gone from the home when he was twelve 
and the father was scarcely the one to nurture 
the lad in the teachings of the mother. His 
beliefs lay along a different course. He did 
not accept the Bible, and his chief delight was 
to find some new section to tear to pieces, 
fancying he was at the same time tearing 
down the Christian faith. Was there a flaw 
in the Christian character of a man or woman 
in the neighborhood? It served to bring a 
sneer about religion. 

The children — five motherless birdlings left 
in the nest — were allowed to go to church out 
of respect for the one who had passed on. All 
were confirmed in their church, but their con- 
ception of Christ and his teachings was vague. 
His day was Sunday; the other days were 
theirs, except for the appointed feasts. 

College days came. Young Merton was a 
virile youth to whom sin in repulsive form 
had not come. He was clean-lived, and never 
had had a drink; nor, stranger still, achieved 
to the usual vices of the idle rich man's son. 
With social standing, money, ability, he was 
welcomed by the blue-blooded youth of the 
university and was soon taken into the "frat," 



34 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

in whose house at another university the story 
was being related. Baseball was second 
nature to him, and he was chosen one of the 
nine sent to compete at a world's fair with 
the flower of the colleges of the nation. 

In the "frat" house he had taken his first 
drink, while yet a freshman. In the rosy 
visions which the alcohol inspired there was 
none of the broken-down drunkard, of shame, 
or disgrace. Yet that first drink made him 
the drunkard, with all its accompaniments. 
As an athlete he was not allowed to drink 
more than casually; but this was enough. 
The habit was formed; chains were forged 
beyond all human power to break. As usual, 
the victim knew not of this. He did not 
realize that he already was a slave, so, of 
course, had not the slightest desire for free- 
dom. In the estimation of his fellows it was 
gentleman; that he ever would drink as a 
gentleman; that he would ever drink as a 
"bum" never occurred to him. 

Merton had all this in mind as he spoke 
earnestly to the group about him. He was 
determined that they should see in his expe- 
rience the insidious power of alcohol; hating 
it with all his soul, he sought to point out the 
two paths and the sure destination of each. 
He knew that Christ was the only sure cure 



A FRAT HOUSE CONFESSION 35 

for the drunkard, as for every other sin. Lov- 
ing him, he sought to bring him into the lives 
of the young students. 

When Merton graduated it was with 
honors — and a habit. He thought to follow 
in the footsteps of his father at the bar; but 
cigarettes and drink sapped his stability, and 
in the end he was attached to another kind 
of bar. To dance, or play tennis, or some other 
society good time, offered far more pleasure 
than the perusal of dry tomes of legal lore, 
and because of dissipation he could not pin 
himself down to study. The bar was aban- 
doned for business. This prospered, so that 
he had a good income, but the gay society life 
had its attractions; he was in demand to lead 
the cotillon, and social engagements overshad- 
owed business. After nights of the butterfly 
life — no, it is moths that fly when candles are 
lighted, to singe their wings — business had 
little to attract him and he drank more than 
ever to keep up his flagging energies. Gam- 
bling with his young-blood companions offered 
a means of supplementing his income, the de- 
mands upon which had grown faster than 
the salary given him. Yet he would have 
passed for the equal of any young man of 
promise in the town. The park bench was 
not even in the dim perspective. 



36 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

Merton was a regular churchgoer on Sun- 
days. The rest of the week he was drinking, 
racing, or playing the races or the market, 
frequenting prize fights, or being fleeced by 
some professional gambler. Several of the 
latter gentry forced the father to settle the 
son's debts. Whisky was too mild by this 
time; absinthe was required to steady his 
nerves. He had become a drunkard. One day 
his father, enraged by his hopeless, degenerate 
condition, ordered him from the home. 

The boy had married, in the meantime, a 
charming Southern girl, and though for two 
years the husband had not drawn a sober 
breath, she refused to desert him, even when 
the father turned against his boy. The father 
advised her not to stick to her husband, but, 
when she refused, gave her a large-sized check, 
telling his son that he did not want to see his 
face again, and that the home was barred to 
him forever. 

To another State farther north the couple 
traveled, he hoping to secure a position, she 
trusting that fate would usher in a new regime 
in her home. But it did not. Merton secured 
a position with one of the large trusts at a 
good salary. He strove and succeeded and 
was well liked. But he did not end his drink- 
ing. It had too firm a hold upon him to be 



A FRAT HOUSE CONFESSION 37 

affected by wishes and resolutions, and he 
drank worse than ever. Night after night he 
awoke craving the drink that only brought a 
greater thirst. He kept a bottle under his 
pillow, or within reach of his hand, for he 
had to have it. He kept a bottle in his desk 
by day for the same reason. 

One day while he was at lunch one of the 
officers of the corporation had occasion to 
look for some papers in the young man's desk. 
The bottle was found, there was a scene, and 
the clerk was discharged. Even soulless cor- 
porations have no use nowadays for the man 
who drinks; one who, at least, cannot wait 
until after office hours is impossible. 

Long before this the wife's check from the 
father was gone. It had been put in a bank in 
her name, but under pleas that sums were 
needed for pressing claims, she signed small 
checks in favor of the husband. He raised the 
amounts and squandered the money in drink. 
Clothing, jewelry, and everything else with a 
pawnshop value went there to satisfy the 
demon within him. Some months before the 
end came the wife had returned in sorrow to 
her home in the South. She felt that there 
was no hope for her husband. 

Existing for a number of weeks in another 
city, borrowing small sums from friends and 



38 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

"hanging out" at a swell bar, he at length 
came to a point where those friends were tired 
of being "panhandled" and bade him begone. 
In another city, nearer the metropolis, he 
sought work vainly. Down to his last dollar, 
it too went for drink. Then his watch went, 
and he sent pleading telegrams to a brother at 
the old home and to another, a broker in the 
North. Of course neither sent a reply. They 
knew that the money asked, if given, would 
all go to the saloon man. 

"Let him starve. Maybe, if he gets good 
and hungry, it will do him good. Let's see; 
the prodigal did not come to himself until 
after no man gave unto him. Well, we'll try 
that plan. Everything else has failed," 

That was the way the brothers reasoned. 
Had there been a reliable cure for the 
brother, they would have given large sums 
for his treatment. They knew not that the 
Great Physician would heal him without 
money or price. 

O, the irony of fate! Here was a man 
robbed of everything he possessed that was 
worth while, unless it be life — penniless, a 
wanderer, sleeping on the park benches in a 
county named for his illustrious ancestor. 

At the railway station, where he sought the 
telegram which never came, he was accosted 



A FRAT HOUSE CONFESSION 39 

by a stranger who first inquired the name and 
then said he had once been aided by the 
wretched semblance of a man he addressed. A 
small sum of money, sufficient to pay fare to 
the metropolis, was asked and given, and with 
it a cordial invitation to call on the friend 
when that city was reached. 

It was cheaper by the trolley and the trip 
was made that way. What had been saved 
was represented in a bottle of whisky. On the 
verge of delirium, he felt that he must have 
drink at hand if that awful moment came 
while on the trolley car, else he would die 
before he could get the whisky. 

When he reached his brother's office in the 
city he found him gone to Europe — sailed the 
day before. From college chums and other 
friends, and by the many devices of the drunk- 
ard, he obtained money to keep him in food 
and drink — principally the latter — for about 
two months. Then these avenues were closed 
to him. There was only one more to "touch 
up"; this was a relative in the financial dis- 
trict. He was a working Christian, a friend 
of the rescue missions, a coworker with the 
late Rev. Samuel H. Hadley, the "Apostle to 
the Outcast." Though he had shunned the 
cousin for that very reason, it was through 
him that the whole world was to be made 



40 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

over to Merton and a human soul to be re- 
claimed. 

When no man gave the cousin was appealed 
to. Warning had come before the visit, the 
family sending word not to give money to 
Merton, who was reported hopeless. But the 
cousin loved the Master and knew his power 
to save to the uttermost and was waiting for 
the visit. 

When he came the wreck of sin was so com- 
plete that it was necessary to ask that he 
should not visit the office again, but meet the 
cousin elsewhere. Money was given, and with 
it a homily on the young man's duty to him- 
self and others and to God, and a testimony 
that through Jesus Christ he might find 
release from his evil ways. Unlike the others, 
the cousin bade him "come again' ' to an 
appointed rendezvous. , In a week he was 
back, worse, if that were possible. 

"I wish you would go down to this place 
and bring me back a book," said the cousin, 
handing him a slip of paper with a name and 
address upon it. The address was that of 
Mr. Hadley's mission. The latter's assistant 
was there when the tramp arrived, and he 
knew what to do with such a case. He had 
gone through a like experience before becom- 
ing a soul-winner. The mission janitor, once 



A FRAT HOUSE CONFESSION 41 

a train robber, welcomed the visitor and took 
him to the office. After a short talk, in which 
the assistant superintendent unfolded the way 
of escape from drink, the two knelt and 
prayed. Probably it made little impression 
on the one; it was the prayer of faith for the 
other — faith which knew how richly God ful- 
fills his promises. To the down and out, any- 
thing which promised relief was welcomed. 

The question is often asked in rescue mis- 
sions how many of the thousands who kneel 
at the altar are really saved. Mr. Hadley 
used to reply to the query: "I don't know. 
We don't keep the books down here. I shall 
never know until we all stand before the 
judgment bar. But I know that enough are 
saved to keep me telling the story; that's my 
part of the work." 

But he told his friends, also, that as many 
as could be brought under Christian influ- 
ences were landed for eternity, usually, and 
he spent much of his energy in following up 
the converts. God speed the day when Chris- 
tian men and women will endow the missions 
liberally enough to enable a work of conserva- 
tion to be prosecuted on a large scale. 

When the book was carried to the cousin 
a reluctant promise was obtained to attend 
the mission meeting that night. 



42 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

Who can describe the act of salvation? 
What words can depict the influence which 
comes upon men in the presence of Jesus and 
his present-day disciples, filled like those of 
old with a love and a vision? 

The meeting was starting as the relatives 
entered. God sent a prophet for the occasion. 
A converted gambler led the meeting, a man 
whose soul yearned after the lost and who 
told the miracle of salvation in his own life. 

When he related how he had knelt in a mis- 
sion hall and prayed God to give his wife a 
new husband and his children a new father, 
after whisky and cards had taken all he had 
and driven him from home, the young tramp 
thought of his wife in the far away Southland 
and wondered if he would ever see her again ; 
wondered if some such change might not come 
to him. He loved his wife, but he loved 
whisky better. No! He loathed whisky, but 
he must have it, for the demon was in control. 

Then, one after another, men stood up and 
told how a similar change had come to them 
by calling upon Jesus to save them. Some of 
the men told stories much like his own expe- 
riences of the last few years. Some of them 
he recognized as men of education and former 
social standing; others by their speech be- 
trayed the lack of instruction and elevating 



A FRAT HOUSE CONFESSION 43 

surroundings. But they all had the one tale. 
They had been Down and Out, and were now 
Up and Doing, and they looked it. 

Not content with simply telling men of the 
power of God unto salvation, in a mission a 
chance is always afforded any who wish to 
pour out their broken hearts at the mercy 
seat. When the invitation was given, asking 
those who wished prayers to hold up their 
hands, one hand went up, and one heart al- 
most stopped beating in anticipation. A mo- 
ment later another invitation brought him to 
his feet, and with bowed head and streaming 
eyes he walked up the narrow aisle and knelt 
with a dozen other tramps, crooks, and drunk- 
ards. The college boy had reached the depths 
of humiliation ; but he had reached the heights 
of hope also, and he prayed as though his life 
depended upon it, as it did. He had forgot- 
ten all about his pride of birth, had even for- 
gotten his present misery in the realization 
of his sins, and he pleaded the prayer of the 
prodigal so sincerely that it reached the ear 
of the Almighty, with whom to hear means 
forgiveness for the penitent one. 

His cousin and other friends raised up of 
God nurtured the newborn babe of the king- 
dom; the cousin was an almost constant com- 
panion, and for seven months they lunched 



44 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

together at noon and went together to the 
mission at night. The mission converts re- 
ceived him cordially — lovingly — their friend- 
ship interpreting brotherhood to him in a new 
way. 

This was the story which the college group 
heard; the result of the gospel power was in 
their midst. Flushed faces deepened in color, 
and a moistness of the eyes betrayed how 
deeply many of them were moved by the tale. 

"Fellows, I have proved it. God can save 
the drunkard, but he can save you from being 
drunkards too, and he can make you clean and 
rightlived," said Merton. 

In the quiet of the lounging place one after 
another of the boys decided for Christ and 
pledged themselves to tell of his power on 
earth at every possible opportunity. 

Tramp no longer, his perpetual thirst 
overcome by the living waters of the promise, 
as an ambassador of a group of college men 
and under the direction of a religious institu- 
tion, Merton speaks to thousands of college 
boys each year. From the very first he felt the 
desire to tell drunkards there was hope for 
them, and he spent much time in hospitals, 
alcoholic wards, and in prisons; then he 
was made assistant superintendent of the 
mission where he was converted. Being called 



A FRAT HOUSE CONFESSION 45 

to speak in many churches, he saw the need of 
preserving the young men from the fate which 
had befallen him for many years ; then he was 
called to his present field. 

To Merton was reserved the great joy of 
leading his own father to Christ. The father 
could tear to tatters the Old Book, he thought, 
but he could not answer the transformation 
of his boy, and it melted his heart. 

A letter from Merton tells of this joyful 
event. "He forgave my wayward past," he 
writes, "and when he died we were fully 
reconciled." 

The remainder of the family were converted, 
as well. They had been mainly nominal Chris- 
tians, but the revelation in Merton made them 
fall in love with the Master. His wife gave 
her life and service to him a year after Mer- 
ton's conversion, as a thank-offering to God 
for giving back the husband, and she is 
supporting a girl missionary in India by her 
own efforts, and herself is leading others to 
Christ. The three brothers know the joy of 
sins forgiven, and all are proud of the redemp- 
tion of the one whom they had thought hope- 
lessly lost. 

How many do the missions save? Who can 
tell the number who will reach gloryland 
through this one? Rescue missions perhaps 



46 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

pay better on the investment than almost any 
other form of Christian work, for they turn 
out workers. 

Honored by his fellow men and by God, 
loved by all who know him, Merton remembers 
the pit whence he was digged and has set his 
face to keep as many as possible from the 
miry clay, in the colleges and like places. 
None would ever suspect his past, except by 
his own revelation, for God has removed the 
marks of sin and he bears no resemblance to 
the park sleeper of a few years ago. "If any 
man be in Christ, he is a new creature," wrote 
Paul. Doth not the proof lie here? 



CHAPTER V 

"He First Findeth His Own Brother" 

Wallace was a good-for-nothing, drunken 
tramp. He had been fireman, saloonkeeper, 
gambler, circus fakir, and follower of cheap 
shows at fairs, and he had not succeeded very 
well at anything. Now he was a tramp, and 
he was not even a success at that. It required 
too much thought — and too little ; too much in 
evading work; too little with respect to his 
past — for he had a memory and it gave him 
many anxious hours in his downward career 
— and, now that he was down and out, mem- 
ory was still active. 

It was the night of his birthday anniversary. 
Perhaps that was why he was so gloomy. He 
could not forget that once he was pure and 
the light of a mother's eye. That mother, he 
well knew, would wet her pillow with tears 
that night, and sobs would mingle with her 
prayers that God would save her precious boy. 
Fifteen years she had pleaded before the 
Throne for this boy and another almost as 
wayward; then she had committed them back 
into the hands of God in this way : "Father, I 
do not rebel because you do not answer my 
47 



48 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

prayers, but I can do nothing for my boys, so 
I give them back to you, and you must save 
them. I have done all I can." 

She felt that her prayers had been uttered 
in faith and that it was now the Divine part 
to see that his promises were kept. Mean- 
while she would trust and wait — and pray on. 

Wallace knew this, or had a pretty strong 
conviction that his mother was praying for 
him; but her ceaseless love only made him 
sad, for he had no thought of ever turning to 
her God, or away from his evil life. He felt 
that he was doomed; that no power existed 
which could change him into a respected and 
self-respecting man. He knew he could not 
change of his own volition. Yet this birthday 
night how he wished that he might be back 
with mother! It was so long since he had 
seen his loved ones. 

With such reflections the lodging house 
became strangely intolerable for one who had 
not seen a bed for several weeks. Fortune 
had been against him every way he turned. 
On this birthday occasion he found his cash 
capital to be thirty cents. For a birthday 
present he "bought himself a lodging-house 
room. It was too early to retire, and the vile 
smoke and viler conversation of the office did 
not fit with thoughts of home and mother. 



FINDETH HIS BROTHER 49 

Leaving the surroundings, which disgusted 
him as never before, he strolled amid the 
throng until he saw a transparency before a 
building he knew well. He did not realize it, 
but that sign was the very thing he had been 
looking for, and he turned in as though he 
had been headed for the mission, which occu- 
pied the place where the dive had once been. 
He felt so lonely ; perhaps he would hear some- 
thing which would make him forget for a little 
while. Small thought had he that his hunger- 
ing and thirsting after better things was 
about to be satisfied by his mother's God ; that 
the blackness within his soul was but the 
denser because of the perfect day at hand. 

Wallace was not brought up to be a tramp. 
The influences of a Christian home were his, 
and he was taught the way of rectitude. Sin, 
the destroying monster, early had come into 
his life, however. He had been given every 
opportunity, but the Evil One was in control. 
As a young man he had obtained the necessary 
"pull" to get into the fire department in a city 
of the Middle West. There he learned to drink 
and it mastered him. Often he went from his 
cot to drive the truck with a muddled brain. 
He was thought daring, but it was whisky, not 
bravery. Good fortune kept him from serious 
accident, but hair-breadth escapes were fre- 



50 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

quent. It was a wonder how he kept his seat 
sometimes. One day he quit his job and 
opened a saloon. 

Perhaps this step was taken that he might 
buy his drinks by wholesale; at any rate, he 
became his own best customer, and one day 
the saloon went into other hands. In another 
city down the river he became bartender- 
waiter in one of the toughest dramshops of 
the place, known locally as the "Sand Pit," 
whose proprietor, on the day the place was 
opened, threw the key away as a useless 
encumbrance. What Wallace made he spent 
on drink and gambling. When he "got 
through" with this job, and a few others as 
bad, he drifted, becoming the consort of 
gamblers, fakirs, and hangers-on of the cir- 
cuses and county fairs, going into anything 
which offered a chance to make money off the 
unwary; one day on "easy street" and broke 
the next; living a happy-go-lucky, though not 
care-free, life, albeit careless. 

It takes a good man to "follow the circus." 
He must have more than the average of wit; 
far more of shrewdness, and a daring that will 
abash the simple farmer or country towns- 
man. Unscrupulous too he must be, it goes 
without saying, full of expedients to lure the 
coin from the pockets of the unwilling. 



FINDETH HIS BROTHER 51 

Had Wallace been able to leave drink alone 
lie might have shone as a "sure-thing" fakir, 
as a star short-change man, or in almost any- 
other of the many branches of the circus 
"game." But drink hobbles the crooked man 
as it does any other; it makes him uncertain 
in his "work" and takes away the money of 
which he becomes possessed. "Comes easy, 
goes easy" was the expression of a generation 
ago, but it is true of the underworld and half- 
world to-day. The wages of sin is death, not 
money; prosperity may linger long enough to 
enslave, but in the end comes death — the 
worse that it is living death, generally. 

These are some of the things which led up 
to the forlorn condition of Wallace on his 
birthday. When he entered the transformed 
dive he had lost practically everything except 
his mother's love and his love for her, and the 
love offered by One whose arms ever are out- 
stretched to the prodigal. 

He heard songs once familiar to him, and 
some new ones, telling about Jesus, and then 
he heard a man tell in simple words and with- 
out attempt at oratory the story of a broken 
life which had been made new. 

"He's telling my own life-story," groaned 
Wallace inwardly; "some one must have told 
him about me." He knew, though, there was 



52 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

no one in the place who conld know, but the 
unfolding story of sin made him wince. Fi- 
nally he could stand it no longer and hastened 
away — almost ran out, as a matter of fact. 
The truth had pierced his heart, revealed unto 
him the blackness of his soul and afresh had 
told him of his lost estate. 

Back he went to the hotel; but he was in 
no frame of mind to face such conditions, and 
he plunged out into the street again. If he 
only could get away from that story — from 
himself, from his lost condition — he felt as if 
he would take any sort of chance. His brain 
was awhirl, and he was not conscious of his 
path until he found himself again in the 
mission. The meeting was breaking up. 

"I'll wait and thank that man for what he 
said," was the thought which ran through 
Wallace's mind. "It has made me think more 
seriously than I have in many a year." 

How the Holy Spirit seizes upon the upper- 
most impulses of the sinner to lead him near 
the fountain! The leader felt the need of 
Wallace before a word was exchanged. As 
the latter faltered out his thanks, the leader 
asked: "What's the matter, my boy? Have 
you been drinking?" 

He already had clasped Wallace's hand 
with sympathetic grip and one hand rested on 



FINDETH HIS BROTHER 53 

the weary one's shoulder. No, one had been 
so kindly for years. It finished the heart- 
breaking and Wallace burst into tears. A 
moment later he was on his knees sobbing his 
plea to mother's God. In that Holy of holies, 
whose veil no third person can pierce at such 
a moment, the mercy seat was found, and 
mother's prayer and mother's faith found 
justification. 

It was recognized that Wallace was an 
unusual man. In a few days the marks of sin 
had vanished, leaving a gentle, happy disposi- 
tion, and — wonder of wonders< — he was not 
only willing but eager to work. The "new 
creature" had lost the desire to live without 
work; anything honest was his sole stipula- 
tion. 

When he had been on the way long enough 
to feel his feet upon the Rock, an intense 
longing came to send the good news to his 
brother. Another Andrew, he sought a way 
to "find" his wayward brother; to tell him, 
"I have found the Messiah," like that other 
Andrew. 

The little band of converts counseled with 
Wallace over the means; three of them actu- 
ally had a part in the composition of a letter 
which was written. A few others were asked 
to join in a series of prayers which winged 



54 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

the letter every mile of the necessary journey. 
Simon was thus called. 

This was many years ago. Wallace has 
prospered. His employers like him so well 
that some of them come to his anniversary 
each year. It is a pretty good test of the 
Christian character when one's employer and 
daily associates find something praiseworthy 
therein and come to express it publicly on 
such an occasion. 

Despite overwhelming assaults by the 
adversary, Wallace has persisted. He has a 
happy home, with Christ enshrined therein. 
No longer a fakir, he has "played this game 
square' 7 and God has blessed him wonderfully. 

Upon the occasion of his second anniversary 
his mother stood by his side upon the plat- 
form and told her part of the story. Then, as 
she called on God to bless her boy, two loving 
arms clasped him as in the long ago. It was 
a scene long to be remembered. Scarce an eye 
in the room but was dimmed with tears ; some 
who had not thought of mother for years were 
melted by the living answer to one mother's 
prayers, and in heaven were recorded other 
answers that night. 



CHAPTER VI 

Simon Brought to Jesus 

John tells us of Andrew's call to Simon: 
"He brought hira unto Jesus." If the answer 
to the later Andrew's letter was slow in com- 
ing, his brother was none the less brought to 
Jesus. Yes, and the parallel is even more 
marked, for the new Simon has been called to 
the service of the Master and for years has 
stood like "the Rock." 

The letter which was destined to call the 
brother was read with misgivings. Emil 
smiled incredulously as he ran over the pages. 
Letters before that had told of efforts to turn 
over a new leaf, to try for a fresh start, or of 
struggles to win out. As a rule they wound 
up with a plea for money or were closely 
followed by others to that end. 

"Nonsense/' said Emil; "he's only getting 
ready to 'touch me up' for another ten-spot." 

He read the letter through again, however, 
and its message lodged in his memory against 
the time when it should be needed, then 
unthought of as a prospect. Emil was on top 
when the letter came. There had been times 
when he had not been there. His family and 

55 



56 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

associates knew him as a heavy drinker and 
gambler. To such the need is never far dis- 
tant. 

The career of Emil had been of a different 
character from that of his brother. The 
younger one had gone astray along other lines. 
When but a youth he had obtained money 
from a bank on his mother's name. She had 
made it good and saved him from trouble. 
Then Emil ran away, going where his brother 
was located, thinking the latter had a fine 
position; instead he found him broke, and 
both almost starved. In the same city a busi- 
ness man gave Emil a chance, only to have 
his confidence betrayed, and Emil had to leave 
the State hurriedly for that affair. 

In another city he started at the bottom 
with a mercantile firm and rose from porter 
to be a trusted manager. He was drinking 
and gambling all the time, and one day was 
called in to explain matters. He had to own 
to acts very humiliating to him; even more 
humiliating to his wife, who had to be told of 
his confession. 

About this period of his life Emil had gone 
out on the road to sell goods and was success- 
ful, though his habits made him an uncertain 
factor. One day he disappeared from his 
territory. He was sought in many directions 



SIMON BROUGHT TO JESUS 57 

to no avail. Many days later a telegram, 
dated in a city several hundred miles distant, 
came to the relatives asking for money to 
enable him to reach home. Instead of sending 
money, a nephew was sent, and he brought the 
wanderer back home. It was considered cer- 
tain that the money would have gone to 
prolong the spree. 

One time when Emil was brought home sick 
after such an escapade the family physician 
was called in. He assured the family that 
after his treatment was completed Emil 
would not want another drink. As though 
drugs could purge the soul of the sin which 
makes drunkards! The treatment was long; 
the effect may have lasted ten days. 

"I didn't want a drink," Emil said after- 
ward ; "I wanted two for every one I formerly 
craved." 

Friends backed him to start in the same 
line of business and for a time he prospered, 
to all appearances. But drink and cards 
lead only one way — down — and he who follows 
them must expect to travel that pathway. 

After he started in business for himself he 
braced up somewhat and, as he was very 
popular with the trade in his line, built up a 
good business. He might have made a fortune 
but for his habits. Gradually drinking bouts 



58 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

were resumed, with worse excesses than 
before. Business suffered and he was heavily 
in debt. To continue his debauches he fre- 
quently issued checks which were returned 
by the bank with the significant words upon 
them : "No funds." 

He had not quite reached this stage when 
his brother's letter arrived, telling of the 
latter's conversion and change of life. He 
was ready for the message in the letter, but 
not ready to accept the call. He did not 
realize his lost condition, and prided himself 
not a little upon his superiority over the 
brother. But he had read the wonderful testi- 
mony of Wallace, and the Holy Spirit safely 
might be left to see that its truths were stored 
away against the day of famine, when he 
should cry out in his despair: "Is there then 
no hope?" That day came soon enough. 

One day he sat on the side of a bed in a 
hotel in his home town, pondering over such 
of the events of the previous ten days as he 
could recall. He had awakened from a spree 
which he knew had lasted that long. He 
knew also that his relatives were looking for 
him, and that probably every policeman in the 
city, who knew him, also was looking. Per- 
haps the detectives had been put on his trail 
by one of his victims. He learned that his 



SIMON BROUGHT TO JESUS 59 

place of business had been closed, after his 
wife had failed to find him, and he knew that 
the wreck was worse than anything which had 
heretofore befallen him. 

While he sat pondering and trying to find 
a way of escape from the appalling situation, 
and finding none, suddenly the letter he had 
received appeared before his vision and a 
voice seemed to say to him : "Why don't you 
go and see Wallace?" 

He found, on counting the money left from 
his spree, that there was enough to enable him 
to "go to Wallace," and in an hour he was on 
his way. 

The following night a messenger boy carried 
word to Wallace that his brother had come. 
He had essayed to walk from his hotel to the 
mission, but had stopped on the way to 
bolster up his courage. Not being used to the 
liquor sold on the Bowery, it had gotten the 
best of him. It never occurred to him that a 
drunken man was welcome at a mission* — 
much less that it was a class particularly 
invited. He went back to his hotel and sent 
a messenger to say that he was in the city. 

Half a dozen converts and workers that 
night received a great incentive to faith. 
They had prayed that God would touch Emil, 
and here he was to answer the petitions. Now 



60 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

they prayed that God would inspire Wallace 
as he went to the brother — prayers mingled 
with thanksgiving to God for bringing the 
loved one thus far toward salvation. 

The following night Emil was at the 
mission. An anniversary was being cele- 
brated, the first held in that place. One of 
the converts had been faithful to his vision 
for twelve months, and he was on the plat- 
form telling his story of one year of joy and 
real life after twenty years of wandering. 
Emil wondered why the man would lay bare 
his life in such an open manner. He smiled 
at this and other testimonies, they were so 
unusual to him, but he would not yield. He 
was pierced to the heart, nevertheless. He 
had heard men stand and tell things which 
might have been parts of his own story, and 
all had linked up Jesus with the change. 
Jesus! No one claimed any credit for the 
change, but gave it all to Jesus. That was 
mother's Friend. 

But he had cursed God's Church and his 
people and had reviled the religion which now 
he heard was doing for others what he realized 
he needed to have done for himself. Would 
he find forgiveness for his blasphemy, and was 
there salvation for such as he had been? 

Two nights he sat and listened. He did not 



SIMON BROUGHT TO JESUS 61 

smile the second night; on the third tears 
filled his eyes. He wondered why, and could 
not understand what had come over him. His 
brother and the others were wise enough to let 
God have full play with the prodigal. Their 
part done, he must save. 

God always has an agent at hand ; this time 
it was a dear woman, a mother, who had 
heard about this wanderer. When Emil did 
not heed the invitation, she went to him, and 
with her arm about him asked if he were not 
ready. 

Satan had been telling him that it was too 
late;' asking what he was going to do about all 
those bad checks and other things, but at last 
Emil threw himself upon the love of the 
Master and sobbed out his plea for mercy, and 
found Jesus. 

A few days later he took a place as porter 
in his old line of trade — to begin over, as he 
had begun many years before. It was not 
long before God called him into his service 
and his powerful testimony and patience with 
and love for the man who is down and out have 
won many to Christ. He is a local preacher, 
and goes to many churches to tell of the work 
of the Master in the highways and hedges of 
the city and of his power to save — a real Peter 
with a true gospel message. 



62 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

His wife, once so stricken that her reason 
was despaired of, because of his acts, has been 
restored to him, the bad checks and notes have 
been canceled, the old debts paid, and all the 
other "old things have passed away." 



CHAPTER VII 

Neither Jew nor Gentile 

If you could have seen the forlorn little 
fellow the night he came to the mission, 
surely you would have pitied him, if nothing 
more. He had come there out of a living 
tomb; not directly, because when the invita- 
tion was given to him he was not ready. He 
had come, however; almost always they do, 
if the invitation be from the heart. His had 
been from a great soul which yearned after 
men, who had been invited to preach among 
the dwellers in the Tombs — the jail of a large 
city where prisoners are held pending trial. 

The young man, Love, was there on a 
larceny charge for a week, one day of which 
was the Sunday, when the preacher came, and 
Love went to the chapel service, perhaps 
because it promised a relief from the lonesome 
confinement. God had appointed it, he knew 
afterward, that he might hear a message 
which was to bring him eternal liberty. 

He remembered little but the invitation, 
and a few words about the way men were 
being straightened out in the mission. This 
was something new — an unexpected novelty. 

63 



64 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

Other men had told him that he never could 
be any better, and he half believed it — that is, 
if he believed anything. He did not believe in 
God. 

Born of parents in affluent circumstances 
in a European capital, his every desire was 
gratified in childhood and young manhood. 
Every educational advantage was given him, 
also, even the great university at the capital; 
but sin had become so alluring and led to such 
excesses that he had to leave before he finished 
and acquired his degree of mechanical engi- 
neer. He was secured a place with an engi- 
neering firm, however, and plans were made 
to get him in the government service after he 
should have attained proficiency. Sin again 
intervened and that position was given up. 
Indulged at every turn, given money to spend 
almost as freely as he might desire, he went 
into fresh paths of sin. 

"Sin" and "separation" begin with the 
same letter, and the one nearly always leads 
to the other. Love had gone so deep in sin 
that he could see no way out of his pit, which 
he had digged himself. Satan pointed to 
America and said: "You go there and start 
over again. No one knows you, and you can 
live right, there." 

The father was ill of an incurable malady 



NEITHER JEW NOR GENTILE 65 

and the mother needed the supporting arm 
of the only son in the home, for the other 
children had nests of their own. Love knew 
he never could get permission to leave home, 
much less to journey across the Atlantic. 
That was why he engaged his passage before 
he told anyone. Mother pleaded to no avail; 
father could not be disturbed. Love looked 
on his face, which he never was to see again, 
and left. 

Some one has said that the prodigal son 
was a long way off from his father ere he left 
the home for the far country — far off in 
sympathy and far off from the other influences 
of the home. Love had been in that state 
for a long time. He loved his father and 
mother and others of the family, but he loved 
self more than all the rest, and that which 
catered not to self had little place in his 
life. It was selfishness which led him to a 
new world — that he might have his own way 
without criticisms from others, without even 
observation by others. 

He told himself that he would go to work, 
and in a land where all made plenty of money 
he would earn enough to live like a gentle- 
man. His definition of a "gentleman" prob- 
ably would not compare with that of what we 
are pleased to term the "old school" ; it would 



66 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

more nearly correspond to the fast set of 
every large city. To live well, dress well, to 
travel in the gay crowd as one of the gayest, 
and above all to drink "like a gentleman" 
— these things went to make up the life of a 
"gentleman" in his vision. 

It was realized. By degrees the old life of 
across the water was resumed and the white- 
light district of a metropolis had another 
moth singeing its wings at the candle. 
Promises made to mother on the eve of 
departure were forgotten, and the prodigal 
son in the far country was spending his money 
in riotous living with the usual result : at last 
"no man gave unto him." 

Love secured a good position from the first, 
in a place where his ability could be made 
manifest. As he had dreamed, so he pros- 
pered. Had he been compelled to struggle 
for a time, to learn the value of money in the 
new land, he might have been weaned from 
the gay life; but with plenty of money in his 
pockets, the fascination of sin persisted. He 
might have murmured at privation and 
struggle; discipline never has been thought 
happy by the disciplined. Not until later 
does the blessing of not being given all we ask 
for loom before one to the glory of God. 

One cannot live night and day for very long 



NEITHER JEW NOR GENTILE 67 

without the pace telling; managers have a 
way of noticing when a clerk is lax and of 
ascertaining the cause. They know that a 
clerk cannot serve two masters — that either 
business or high life must suffer. After a 
time Love found another place, but he did 
not ease up in his prodigality. 

There came a time when his income did not 
suffice for the life he led. He began to 
"borrow" from the cash drawer. There was 
nothing unique in either method or result. 
He was found out and discharged. The 
proprietor forgave him, with a warning 
against his method of life. Other employers 
allowed him to settle his offenses against 
them, but there was finally a man who would 
not relent and the law was called into action. 
Sin had been found out ; its alluring prospects 
were no more. Instead, stone walls and iron 
bars and jail fare supplanted the luxurious 
home and "swell" restaurant. Hard as was 
the penalty of sin, in the providence of God 
it became a blessing, the prison bars a very 
gate to paradise. 

He was classed as a Jew on the prison 
records, but he had no religion. Before he 
entered college he had become an atheist. 
Strange that the Spirit moved him to enter the 
chapel where his "great invitation" was to be 



68 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

delivered. Stranger still that it impressed 
him sufficiently to make him curious. Curious 
he was, yet there was an underlying stratum 
of wonder as to whether the preacher had told 
the truth, whether it were possible to change 
the life of such a man as he was. 

After being released under a suspended 
sentence, he decided to leave the city for a 
time, and was fortunate enough to secure a 
position as bookkeeper at a nearby summer 
resort. In spite of the multiplied opportu- 
nities for evil, Love stuck to his work and kept 
straight, returning to the city at the end of 
the season. 

In a few days he engaged with a firm in the 
best position he ever held. He worked hard, 
became well liked, and gained the confidence 
of the firm members, so much so that when 
planning an extension of business Love was 
offered a place in the partnership. Corre- 
spondence developed that his family in Europe 
felt disposed to furnish the necessary money, 
contingent upon a satisfactory examination 
of the business. 

Before a second letter came Love was no 
longer with the firm. He had been found out 
again and had to leave quickly. He had 
started the old fast life once more and, though 
he made fair wages, it was not enough to keep 



NEITHER JEW NOR GENTILE 69 

up the pace, and after a time he had turned 
crooked again, despite the fact that a sus- 
pended sentence hung like a sword over his 
head. 

One of his old bosses had told him he would 
see the time when he would walk the streets 
penniless unless he mended his ways. He had 
laughed at the prophecy; but it had come to 
pass. After a few weeks his means gave out. 
He had been walking the streets a week, home- 
less and friendless. Food had not passed his 
lips for several days. He did not mind that 
so much, for food often palled; but there was 
no friend. That was worse than the chill of 
midwinter. 

None of the songs he heard that first night 
in the mission had a familiar sound, though 
something like the ones sung in the jail 
chapel. He was not particularly interested in 
the service until he heard one man after 
another tell how Jesus Christ could save from 
sin — had saved them from their drunkenness, 
thievery, and kindred sins. On that night the 
preaching of the cross, which before was fool- 
ishness to this young Jew, became the power 
of God unto salvation, for he went with others 
to the altar and prayed that God would help 
him to believe. Like the father of the epi- 
leptic boy, he wanted to believe if only it would 



70 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

bring relief from a dreadful condition, and 
God honored the motive and gave him belief, 
like that other Jew of old. 

There was a long period of struggle against 
adverse conditions within and without. He 
left the mission that first night without speak- 
ing to a soul. For several nights he continued 
to walk the streets and starve — for he would 
not beg — but continued to return each night 
to the mission. He was noticed by one of the 
converts, spoken to, and received into the 
aristocracy of the redeemed without a ques- 
tion and with a warmth of welcome he had 
not experienced for long. 

There were other struggles before he knew 
that his feet were on the Rock. Remorse, par- 
ticularly with reference to his own family, 
almost brought on serious melancholy. Three 
friends stuck by him, resolved to cheat the 
devil, and their prayers were united that God 
would save the young Jew and send him out 
as a messenger to his own people with the 
gospel of salvation to everyone who will 
believe. Perhaps it was to strengthen their 
faith that God answered the cry and restored 
Love fully. 

He was never the same after that, for, 
though the Evil One struck him down more 
than once, this modern Paul had caught the 



NEITHER JEW NOR GENTILE 71 

vision and no temporary defeat could wrest 
him from his new allegiance. 

Already a lay minister, he is preparing for 
missionary work among his race and has 
developed a strong power in his preaching. 
His clear perspective of the problem of taking 
the gospel to his people has attracted atten- 
tion of Jewish workers. They are praying 
that he may be another Paul, only with a 
message to the Jew rather than the Gentile. 
The God who changed Love from a crooked 
Jew to an honest Christian has proved that 
he is able to supply all his needs ; even the love 
and confidence of the mother he left has been 
restored. "No good thing will he withhold 
from them that walk uprightly." 



CHAPTER VIII 
Midnight and a Park Bench 

Snow was falling fast on that dreary Sun- 
day afternoon, whirling through the sky- 
scraper canons, drifting into the corners of the 
buildings and dooryards and parks, and turn- 
ing the trees into a dazzling lacework. On 
pavement and sidewalk it turned to slush as 
fast as it fell, slimy with the mud of the 
streets and treacherous to those who had to 
venture out of doors. 

Ordinarily but one power could have drawn 
Waters out into the soggy footpaths trodden 
up through the side street; that power was 
the appetite for drink. It was so strong in 
him that he had repeatedly done things which 
he could not account for later — things foolish 
and useless. But he was broke on this stormy 
afternoon, and was afraid he could not get a 
warming drink to counteract the chill of wet 
feet. His shoes were "out" in more than one 
place and his clothing was none too warm 
for an old man — Waters was past sixty-five. 
There was every reason why he should draw 
his chair toward the radiator in the lodging 
house and doze away the hours. 

72 



MIDNIGHT AND A PARK BENCH 73 

While he was speculating on the chance of 
his getting a drink at the corner saloon where 
he sometimes hung out with genial compan- 
ions — when he had money — a stranger handed 
him a ticket-like card, which proved to be an 
invitation to hear a former convict tell of his 
life experiences. 

As he read it, Waters said to himself: "I 
think I ought to hear this man ; I might learn 
something. It says he was a convict and a 
bartender and became a preacher. Here am 
I, a drunkard, of no use to the world, and this 
ex-convict has found a way to make the world 
better. I must go to hear him." 

He did go; out into the slush, which wet 
and chilled his feet ere he had reached the 
corner, on through the wintry blast which 
penetrated to the marrow. He had not far to 
go, but he sank exhausted into a rear seat 
when the meeting place was reached. He 
dozed a few minutes before the singing 
started, and awoke startled, as the song was 
one long since forgotten, but which he had 
heard back in the church in England, and 
which his own children had sung many times. 
His heart warmed at this and other familiar 
tunes, and he was in harmony with the songs 
before the speaker began the chief part of the 
meeting. 



74 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

He had come from his native land many 
years before and had achieved success in a 
large dry goods emporium in managerial 
capacity. He had held several other good 
positions, though this was the best one and 
carried a salary which enabled him to bring 
up his children comfortably. He looked for 
a change which would give him a junior 
partnership, or an equivalent, when the firm 
was reorganized after the death of the active 
head. Instead he had been notified that his 
services would be dispensed with. 

He was not a young man then, and it was 
impossible for him to attain equally good 
employment. Young men were in demand, 
not old men, whose ideas had gone to seed, he 
was told. From that time he steadily went 
down. When he began to drink that helped 
the decline, and soon he could hold no job, 
no matter how humble. 

His children tried to stay the tide of evil, 
but the effect of their pleadings was brief. 
Promises were made but to be broken. How 
could he keep a promise when a demon was in 
control? Some day we shall talk less about 
will power in dealing with the drunkard and 
more about saving power. 

In time the children had to ask him not to 
come home. They saw that he had a place to 



MIDNIGHT AND A PARK BENCH 75 

sleep and enough to eat, and visited him occa- 
sionally, but he brought disgrace to the home, 
and that was barred. They were justified in 
the eyes of the world. Had they not done all 
in their power to reform the father? And so 
he lived in a great lodging house erected by 
a philanthropist, his condition growing more 
deplorable year by year, until he was consid- 
ered a hopeless case. 

He heard the speaker that afternoon say 
that he had been a thief and a drunkard and 
was tending bar in a Western city when he 
was handed an invitation card at the door of 
a mission. Waters felt in his pocket to see 
if he had kept the one given him and was 
relieved to find he had. As the speaker told 
how astonished he had been to hear a prison 
acquaintance relate part of his past and tell 
how he had been led to give his heart to God, 
and then had done that very thing himself, 
thereby finding power to keep from whisky 
and crookedness, Waters felt a tug at his 
heartstrings. 

"O, if only I could do that !" he said under 
his breath. 

Yet, when the speaker asked for a show of 
hands for prayer and then invited men to 
come and ask for that same power, Waters 
sadly shook his head. He had just been debat- 



76 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

ing the matter and had concluded that he was 
too old to start over again. Besides, had he 
not tried many times to quit drinking? 

He could not get away from the story, 
however, try as he would; it seemed to say to 
him, "Why don't you try it?" 

So troubled was he that night that he could 
not sleep and wandered out into the darkness. 
It had ceased storming and grown colder, and 
he walked along the fashionable thoroughfare, 
turning over his problem and endeavoring 
to find some solution. A three-mile walk 
brought him to a park, and he dropped into a 
seat to get his breath before tramping back 
to the lodging house. 

"Why don't you ask God to help you?" 
came the still small voice. 

"I will," his heart responded, and down on 
the snow and ice he knelt, out under the stars, 
not a soul near but a policeman on the corner 
whom he had expected to order him to "move 
on." But he was not alone. The God of the 
universe bent low to hear the cry of a penitent 
heart and turned the souFs anguish to joy 
as he bade it be free. The policeman looked 
through the park fence and, seeing the old 
man, would have driven him out, lest he 
freeze; but as he drew near he saw that the 
supposed "bum" was praying, and left him 



MIDNIGHT AND A PARK BENCH 77 

there, with a mental note to look for him on 
the return trip. 

Next night Waters hunted up the mission- 
ary whose story had upset his beliefs and 
pointed the way to better things and told how 
God had led him a solitary way to the cross, 
where his sins had been laid down. 

Visitors to the mission said the chances 
were that Waters would not hold out, but, 
as usual, they were mistaken. The glib talker, 
the smart and confident one, may offer more 
of promise to the casual visitor, but the 
workers know that it is impossible to gauge 
the work done by Divine Power within a 
human soul, and that oftentimes the most 
unpromising cases, from an outward appear- 
ance, are the choicest miracles of grace, work- 
ing out their own salvation where others 
stumble and fail. 

Science has worked out various tests by 
which a man's character may be determined 
by the eyes, the nose, the droop of the ears, 
the curve of the mouth, or some other physical 
mark, so that one may read what is behind 
the mask; skilled detectives have perfected a 
system by which they can pick out a burglar, 
or a pickpocket, or a strong-arm man from 
the throng, one by the shape of the head, 
another by the size of his hand, a third by 



78 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

another method, and they have demonstrated 
their skill. But no man ever has been able to 
look down into the souls of sinners while they 
kneel at the altar and tell who has been doing 
business with heaven. No one of experience 
would attempt it. 

New life came to Waters with the heart 
change, and he lost his aged look. No wonder 
he did, for the burden of sin had pressed 
heavily upon him. It was but a short time 
when he was manager of a big department 
store in a neighboring city. When that place 
closed another place awaited him, and Waters 
prospered. He did not forget the place where 
he had found encouragement, and began to 
try to help others. He gave himself and his 
money and was always up and doing. Whisky 
had been his undoing; now he was doing all 
he could to remove the curse from the lives of 
others. 

Very soon his children learned of the change 
in his life and welcomed him. After several 
years they took him from the bustle of trade 
and gave him a home along the seashore, 
where he could busy himself with chickens 
and live in the open, but they could not keep 
him away from his spiritual home, had they 
wanted to. Threescore years and ten past, 
he is possessed of vigor, and delights to 



MIDNIGHT AND A PARK BENCH 79 

go where he can tell the story of his night in 
the park when God came down to meet him. 

It has been declared that when a man has 
passed fifty or fifty-five in the down-and-out 
life, the chances are not one in a hundred that 
he will ever leave that life ; that the salvation 
of such an one is practically impossible. 
Waters stands as a monument to the contrary. 
He has never even wavered in his allegiance 
to his Master. 

Allen also came as an old man to God. He 
was a skilled artisan who, when his wife died, 
took to drink and became a doddering drunk- 
ard. He stopped at an open-air service to 
listen to a song, and heard that Jesus Christ 
could save a drunkard. "That's good enough 
for me/' he shouted. "I'm a drunkard; can 
God save me?" At the mercy seat he found 
the power of God unto salvation and became 
a sweet Christian, who refused to allow the 
petty trials of life to mar the peace which had 
come to him. Somehow God seems to smooth 
the way for the old men; none who have put 
their trust in him have been known to find 
him lacking in strength or in blessings. 



CHAPTER IX 
Under Two Flags 

Mother's prayers, mother's songs, mother's 
admonitions — how they cling in memory when 
everything else has gone ! How often a tender 
recollection of the past woos a fainting soul 
back to the paths of rectitude, when such 
turning-about-face would seem to be beyond 
the limits of faith. I have known many men 
who have passed from darkness into His light 
and have heard thousands of others tell the 
salvation story; I cannot now recall more 
than one or two who did not confess to the 
tender influences of early days, when a sainted 
mother taught the name of Jesus to the child 
lips, and the simple prayers and lullabys 
which were a part of the long ago. Many 
rough men can repeat word for word the 
prayers and songs, though years have passed 
since mother taught them; many have con- 
fessed that never in their wildest days have 
the prayers been omitted. 

A well-known rescue hall has an inscrip- 
tion on the wall beside the platform: 

HOW LONG 

SINCE YOU WROTE 

TO MOTHER? 

80 



UNDER TWO FLAGS 81 

Bleared eyes have filled with tears as they 
read the question ; sobs and prayers have not 
been infrequent; hundreds have been lured to 
the mercy seat by the message hidden behind 
the words. 

Who can fathom the depth of the mother 
love, or the influence of her petitions for her 
boy? Doubtless heaven will be filled with 
the trophies of mother-faith. 

A hopeless, helpless being, with little to 
recommend him to favorable attention, awoke 
to hear the chorus, "I love to tell the story." 
He had been sent to a mission meeting by a 
chance acquaintance who feared the man was 
about to die and knew that the mission helped 
unfortunates. 

"That was mother's song," said the help- 
less one, telling of his experience on that night. 
"She sang that song to me on her knees when 
she was putting me to bed : 

"I love to tell the story, 
'Twill be my theme in glory 
To tell the old, old story 
Of Jesus and His love." 

Lieutenant Eichards, of her Majesty's lanc- 
ers, the flower of Britain's troops, had been 
born of wealthy parents in the tight little 
isle. The old home was all that could be de- 



82 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

sired. Three homes there were, as a matter 
of fact, a town house, a country seat, and a 
shooting box in the north, and there were 
all the luxuries which the well-to-do English- 
man loves. Father was upright, if austere; 
mother — a beautiful mother who knew her 
Lord — loved her boy with a love that clung 
to him when all the rest of the world had 
turned against him. 

Careful training, education, and every ad- 
vantage which money could secure were his. 
He was kept free from the world's taint and 
came to manhood strong and virile, a perfect 
type of the English youth of good family. 
He had expected to enter the ministry, but 
later chose the military life and was secured 
a lieutenancy in the crack regiment. 

Up to this time he had not taken a drink, 
and he promised father and mother, as he 
left the home behind, that he would abstain. 
He was well provided for, with all that a 
young officer might desire in the way of 
clothes and money, and there was never a 
thought that one day drink would rob him of 
all that is worth while in life. 

He had hardly left home, however, before 
he began to take a little beer with the other 
officers; the transition to wine and then to 
brandy and soda, the British officer's favorite 



UNDER TWO FLAGS 83 

tipple, was by easy steps. Before he knew it 
he was in the clutches of drink. 

All over England and the Continent he 
traveled, with one object, the finding of new 
dissipations and new frivols, and when a for- 
tune came from his grandfather, this was spent 
in like manner, part of it going into a house 
planned to satisfy his every whim. The par- 
ents were about the only ones who did not 
know of his excesses. 

When the regiment was ordered to India 
for service there was but little social life 
outside the officers' club, and no drinking ex- 
cept in the club or the home of a resident 
civil officer. Here he learned to drink hard 
and to love drink; twenty-one years of life 
practically were given up to the destroyer. 
The appetite grew and in the end the com- 
mission was lost. While in Bombay he was 
operated upon for a disease of the liver 
brought on by drinking, and he was repeatedly 
in delirium from drink. 

The parents learned of his excesses then, 
and, alarmed at the strength of the habit, re- 
sorted to so-called cures and specialists. The 
"cures" were as valueless as the white paper 
on which they were printed. Sanitariums 
in all parts of the world failed to take away 
the appetite. Possessing plenty of money, the 



84 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

parents did not stint their expenditures and 
sent Richards all over the world in search of 
relief. New Zealand, Australia, Europe, and 
America were visited without success. Spe- 
cialists found they could make no impression 
upon him. He only lived to drink. Yet he 
loved his mother and willingly would have 
been cured of his insatiable love for drink for 
her sake. 

The father died broken-hearted, and the 
mother grieved over her boy, but still loved 
him and prayed on. The fortune which the 
father left was squandered by the son, the 
estates went the way of all else, and Richards 
at length sold the old home — his mother's 
home — and it broke her heart. She did not 
live long afterward. 

Lieutenant Richards was finally bundled 
off to America by members of the family. He 
was promised money to live on if he would 
stay away. It was not necessary for him to 
join the ranks of the "remittance men," paid 
to stay away from the disgraced relatives. 
He found friends in one of the great cities 
and soon was in a good position. Though 
this was lost through drink, others were 
found, one paying as high as three hundred 
dollars a month; all were lost from the one 
cause. It got so at last that he could not 



UNDER TWO FLAGS 85 

hold a ten-dollar job, and would have been 
glad to work for room and meals. 

For eight years he drifted from place to 
place, a derelict, sodden and a total wreck, 
sleeping in the back rooms of saloons, on park 
benches, under trucks, wrapped in newspa- 
pers if the night proved cold. He shipped on 
oyster boats, regarded as the lowest employ- 
ment one can have, traveled as a hobo from 
city to city, panhandling everywhere for 
drink. Every trace of the English gentleman 
was gone. 

"I walked the streets winter and summer 
carrying signs/ ' says this scion of the Eng- 
lish gentry, telling of his lost estate. "I was 
actually in the gutter for drink, and I could 
not even hold that job. I served as a <supe' 
in theaters and delivered circulars; I have 
stood in the bread line, and know what it is 
to be refused a crust of bread at a kitchen 
door." 

For a long time the former lieutenant slept 
in a saloon, was kicked out of that as no good, 
and then slept in a nearby park. Many times 
he was sent to the alcoholic wards of various 
hospitals. 

Waking one day, he tried to beg the price 
of a drink from his nearest companion. He 
was told that he had better go to a mission. 



86 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

He had never heard of the place and inquired 
about it. His curiosity was aroused when he 
was told that people in the mission would 
help him. It seemed too good to be true; but 
it was too good not to be true, and he went, 
though he cannot tell how he accomplished 
the distance. IWhen he staggered in the door 
he realized that no other door was open to him. 
Eagged and filthy, he almost feared to attempt 
to enter. 

No one is more loyal to the Church, yet I 
fear that this man would not have been per- 
mitted to enter many of our houses of worship. 
He scarcely would have been welcome at a 
large number of others. Yet here was a man 
seeking the only relief possible for his lost 
condition, the very thing the Church has to 
offer. Why should we separate the sheep from 
the goats when the Word gives that office to 
a Higher Power? 

The hopeless one dropped into a seat and al- 
most immediately went to sleep ; but he heard 
some of the testimonies, though he did not 
believe them. He felt that he was sold, body 
and soul, for drink and it was too late to 
break the bargain. He awoke to hear mother's 
song. After awhile they sang another of 
mother's favorites, "Nearer, My God, to Thee," 
and in his confused visions he saw his mother 



UNDER TWO FLAGS 87 

kneeling beside the bed in the old room where 
so often she had cuddled him up as she crooned 
the songs of hope and trust. 

He staggered to the altar as they sang 
"Though like a wanderer," and knelt and sob- 
bed out a plea to mother's God to take him. 
When they came to the words, 

"So by my woes to be, 
Nearer, my God, to thee," 

they became a prayer upon his lips, and then 
and there in the providence of God the burden 
of woes rolled away and peace came that never 
had been dreamed of. 

Ragged he was, and dirty, but once more 
he was sober, after many years of continuous 
drinking. His brain was not entirely cleared 
up, but he had the consciousness of a great 
and wonderful change within him, which he 
could not fathom, and a new hope had dawned 
when life had been hopeless so many years. 

As soon as he was able to work, a friend 
of the mission offered him a job beating car- 
pets. He earned three and one half dollars and 
meals. He wondered why, with that much 
money, he did not want to rush to the saloon ; 
but he did not go. His first wages in the new 
life kept him until another job came. Ere 
long he had a responsible position and a bank 
account and many creature comforts long 



88 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

denied. He has regained his military bear- 
ing and the traces of sin have been obliterated. 

Far more important to the world than the 
rehabilitation of a man once a menace to so- 
ciety has been the spiritual change which has 
come into this life. There is no fight against 
drink; that desire was taken with the other 
sins. A cultured mentality restored to its 
former vigor, God has been able to use the 
former army officer, and instead of fighting 
under the flag of his native land — under the 
king of the greatest world power of to-day — he 
is enlisted under the banner of the Kingdom 
of Kighteousness for the King of kings. 

Night after night, wherever the oppor- 
tunity, in church or mission, upon the street, 
or wherever he may be, the story of salvation 
is told with power that carries conviction and 
that has won many men from the mire in 
which he once wallowed himself. He has 
learned to love the mother song with a deeper 
love than before — "I love to tell the story. " 

The outcast — cast out — of society has be- 
come the soul-winner, the scum of society 
the very cream of the kingdom. The man 
worthless has been transformed into worth 
while — into an ambassador on behalf of God, 
beseeching lost men, "Be ye reconciled to God." 



CHAPTER X 

A Man's Undoing 

Stelle had gone so far down in the social 
scale, had become such a heavy drinker, and 
bore such a burden of sin that night, that he 
could not conceive that the world had another 
chance for him. It had no other chance; but 
God in heaven had what the world refused 
— was it the seventh or the seventieth? — 
though Stelle did not know it. He had al- 
ways tried to make his own chance or turned 
to friends in his extremity. Now he had come 
to a place where he could not help himself 
and where repeated offenses had made his 
friends turn him down. He had not a friend 
left, except mother; she never turns her boy 
down. Mother is always lifting him up to 
her God in prayer. 

Stelle had come of a godly father and 
mother. They were earnest and active Chris- 
tians, and the child learned to lisp the name 
of Jesus at his mother's knee as she knelt 
with him at the bedside after the little white 
nightie had been put on; then, when "Our 
Father" and "Now I Lay Me" had been said, 
mother tucked in her boy, smoothed out the 
89 



90 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

coverlet, lingering at her task. Then she bent 
low over the bed and kissed her boy good 
night, as she breathed a prayer that God would 
bless him and make him a good boy and a 
great man. He never became great except 
in mother's eyes, and it was so long before 
mother could feel sure that the remainder of 
her prayer had been answered. 

Father too tried to help the boy into a 
knowledge of right and wrong and give him 
strength and character to choose the former. 
One of the earliest recollections which come 
to Stelle in these latter days is of going to 
Sunday school in the little old-fashioned white 
church on the hill. It was under the shade of 
the pines and looked up at the mountains and 
down upon the broad basin of the canal, and 
beyond that the river rippled over the shal- 
lows and swung round and round where the 
eddy swept the rocky barrier which had 
turned the course of the stream. 

No, it was not going to Sunday school, after 
all; it was when, hand in hand, father and 
he, homeward bound, had turned to look back 
at the old church. Somehow it seems to 
Stelle that he was always going away from 
church after that. Until he went from high 
school into the world to wrest from it a living 
he had kept to the Sunday school and church, 



A MAN'S UNDOING 91 

and teacher and preacher had been sowing 
seed which they hoped would spring up and 
flourish. Alas! that for so long the wayside, 
the stony soil, and the thorns were to pre- 
vent a harvest such as they hoped for. Har- 
vest there was, but it did not come from the 
seed sown in the church and home. 

Once in those childhood days father had let 
his boy taste beer at the store on settlement 
day. Father did not drink it often — almost 
never — and the boy did not like the first taste. 
He little dreamed that one day the drink would 
dominate his life. At twelve he had sought 
membership in a boys' temperance order, in 
a year or two becoming one of its officers and 
learning every word of warning in the Bible 
concerning strong drink. He was sure he 
never would be like the one or two drunkards 
the town knew. 

Then the revivalist came to the old church, 
and under the influence of the weeks of spe- 
cial meetings, Stelle had been one of the 
mourners. Who can tell what work of grace 
was done then? Certainly one; the boy 
learned that God heard and answered prayer. 
He had seen the answer as he knelt with a 
chum during the revival and saw the power 
of the Spirit do its work in the heart of a 
scoffing man for whom they were praying. No 



92 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

one could ever make him doubt, after that, 
that God heard the earnest appeal. In later 
years, when agnostic and atheist influences 
beset him and made him waver, always he 
would remember that night in the church, and 
faith persisted. 

When he left school Stelle went into a news- 
paper office to work; then he left the Sunday 
school and speedily forgot the lessons of that 
place and of home. There were dark spots 
in his memory already ; things which he thrust 
away quickly when they rose before him. 
Once he had stolen from his baby brother — 
and had been found out speedily — and there 
were other things he hoped no one knew about. 
Then, just before he went into the newspaper 
office, he had come into conflict with the law 
in a way that might have put him behind re- 
formatory bars if the man involved had been 
harsh. 

When he began to work, Stelle claimed the 
right to remain out at night, and to go about 
the town with his boy friends. He really did 
not want to go into the pool room with them, 
and he had no intention of joining in their 
play. He watched them shove the balls over 
the table and grew fascinated with the game. 
Almost before he knew it he was learning to 
play ; soon he was the leader at this diversion. 



A MAN'S UNDOING 93 

By this time the youth had become the cor- 
respondent of several New York, Philadelphia, 
and other out-of-town newspapers, which 
earned him more money than his salary at 
home. Before he was twenty he was earning 
in excess of a thousand dollars a year and he 
had from the then greatest New York news- 
paper unlimited authority to use the tele- 
graph wires in its behalf. He had become edi- 
tor of the home paper also, and one would 
have said that Stelle was destined for an hon- 
orable and prosperous career. 

One night after a game of pool with his 
chums there were drinks due ; this was a part 
of the lure of the place for the youths of the 
town. The pool room had no right to dispense 
alcoholic drinks, else Stelle would not have 
ventured inside; but instead of the soft drink 
he ordered that night a glass of beer was set 
out for him. He was warm and gulped down 
at least half the glass before it dawned upon 
him that it was a new drink. There was a 
scene, but his companions and the proprietor 
chaffed him and bade him be a man, and fool- 
ishly he yielded to their urging. He never 
had to be urged again. 

No man becomes drunk on one glass of beer, 
but that single glass made Stelle a drunkard. 
In a year or two he could drink more than 



94 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

any one of his companions, and led them in 
revelry and dissipation of all sorts. He had 
set out to have a bank balance of one thousand 
dollars on his twenty-first birthday, but he 
had not counted on this drinking habit. He 
was making money enough to keep up his 
end, but the hundreds did not pile up in the 
bank. 

To a young man of Stelle's habits the town 
grew too small one day. It was convenient 
to New York, and trips there to "see life" 
became a regular thing. Strangely the "life" 
he sought to see was that of the night side 
of New York— down where the white lights 
and red lights glistened to lure the unwary 
and wary ones. In those days — more than 
a quarter century ago — the Bowery and the 
cross streets had many places of notoriety, 
and Stelle found them all. Billy McGlory 
was in his prime on Hester Street, Owney 
Geogheghan on the Bowery, Harry Hill on 
Houston Street, and "The" Allen on Bleecker, 
and because of introductions and the fact that 
he had money Stelle became known to them 
all, and was a welcome visitor there and at 
many other resorts. Many hours of riotous 
living were spent in the section, and in that 
further uptown, where the Haymarket, Cre- 
morne, and other like places flourished. 



A MAN'S UNDOING 95 

The day the Brooklyn Bridge was opened 
Stelle and two companions drank heavily and 
at night wound up in a beer garden on the 
Bowery. They left about midnight, just 
about able to walk to a car which would take 
them to the ferry, on the other side of which 
a train was to be taken for home. Stelle 
little thought, as he staggered out with a com- 
panion on either arm, that the next time he 
entered the place ribaldry would have given 
way to the gospel message, the suggestive 
songs to those about mother and Jesus, and 
that he there would hear that which would 
change the entire current of his life. It was 
many years before that came. 

Stelle had felt the coils of the serpent grow- 
ing about him. Conscience was alive still, 
and it told him he ought to change his habits. 
He noticed that old friends showed their dis- 
approval of his ways by holding aloof. At 
first he tried to overcome his appetite for 
drink, but eventually went deeper than ever 
into sin. Never a word of censure came from 
the home; all was love, but Stelle knew that 
the old folks were grieving. 

At last, feeling that he could not break 
away from his habits, Stelle resolved to go 
to another town to try over. He had it fig- 
ured out that, once away from his environ- 



96 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

ment and associates, he could brace up. He 
actually believed these to be responsible for 
his downfall. In the other town he found 
the temptations much the same and in less 
than a year returned home, for the first time 
in his life discharged for drunkenness. 

He wanted to get away from drink, and if 
some one had pointed the way to salvation as 
the way to cure his habits, years of sorrow 
to himself and his friends might have been 
spared. Jerry McAuley had just begun to 
preach the gospel that Jesus Christ would 
save a drunkard; but little was heard of this 
outside his immediate neighborhood. Stelle 
did not know even that there was such a thing 
as a mission for the drunkard and the crook. 

Back in the old home town Stelle struggled 
to keep straight, and failed over and over; he 
saw that while he had plenty of money, he 
was losing all his friends except his boon 
companions; he saw too that his father and 
mother sorrowed helplessly. His sister lay 
upon her dying bed, wasting away with dis- 
ease. She called him to her bedside, talked 
to Stelle about his evil ways and got him to 
promise upon the open Bible that he would 
not drink again. He meant it and kept the 
promise a week or two; then he was drunk 
again upon the streets. Great remorse came 



A MAN'S UNDOING 97 

over him, and he resolved that he would not 
disgrace the old folks longer; he would go 
away. If he had to be a drunkard, at least 
he would go where no one knew him. 

He stole away from the home town by night. 
He had drawn from the bank all his deposit 
and cashed checks for a considerable sum in 
addition, which had to be made good later, 
and went west. In one of the lake cities 
Stelle proceeded to squander his substance 
in riotous living, drinking, gambling, and ca- 
rousing, until his money was gone. Then he 
walked the streets, slept in a cheap lodging 
house — when he could borrow the price — 
lived on free lunch, when a nickel or two was 
secured for the necessary drink. He had 
thought it an easy task to get employment, 
but all doors were closed to him. 

Stelle resolved to go further west, hoping 
that a friend in a Missouri River city would 
be able to get him a job. He had written the 
friend about it, but did not wait for a reply; 
he started to beat his way over a railway, but 
his clothing was too good for a tramp, and 
the trainmen suspected him for a spotter and 
put him off at every chance. He reached 
his goal, however, and found a job waiting 
for him. 

He had hoped to brace up and change his 



98 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

mode of living in the new place, but lie had 
come to a city where saloons were plenty, where 
gambling was open and promiscuous, where 
Sunday, if anything, was more unbridled than 
the other six days, and what chance was there 
for a young man to mend his ways by the exer- 
cise of will? To tell the truth, Stelle did not 
try very long. Soon he was gambling and 
drinking and carousing with a wild set. All 
made plenty of money — too much for their own 
good — and spent it freely. If they ran short 
before pay day, credit was unlimited every- 
where. 

Less than two years of this and Stelle, 
whose work had won him favor with his 
superiors, was thrown out because his drink- 
ing offset his merits ; had grown unendurable, 
as a matter of fact. He secured another place 
immediately, at better wages, and though for 
a few weeks he kept sober, in time he suc- 
cumbed once more and again was discharged 
for his drinking. Another job was lost for 
the same reason a few weeks later. 

Then, believing that the town had gone 
back on him and that he must break away 
from the associations once more — the same 
old story — he went further west and, under 
the shadow of the continental backbone, where 
nature's cathedral spires continually point to- 



A MAN'S UNDOING 99 

ward heaven, he made a new start. A man he 
had met before put him behind a hotel desk and 
gave him opportunity to become a manager, 
but just as the appointment was due, he was 
found out to be a drunkard and worse, and 
was dropped summarily, being told what he 
had lost. 

Stelle might have been one of the editors 
of a great daily newspaper of the same city 
but for his habits, his drinking being con- 
sidered a bar to promotion. At length it got 
so that no one in the city wanted him, and 
he turned back eastward. Fortune directed 
him to the headquarters of the largest rail- 
way on the continent, where he secured em- 
ployment. For the greater part of a year 
Stelle remained sober, though most of the 
time he was indulging in an occasional glass. 
Then, under the inspiration of a young woman 
who afterward became his wife, he ceased 
altogether. Shortly afterward, when a va- 
cancy occurred in the official staff, Stelle was 
given the place, a highway to preferment, 
had he so chosen. He had previously made 
good in the general office, when the officer 
under whom he worked died suddenly; then 
Stelle conducted the office and wound up all 
the unfinished matters and prepared the way 
for the coming of a new man. 



100 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

In the new place, which required him to 
travel, he was thrown among a free-and-easy 
class of men, fine fellows, but mainly given 
to drink. Stelle held out for six months and 
then began to drink again. Soon he was as 
bad as ever, and when at last it could be en- 
dured no longer, he was dropped. Once more 
he knew that had he kept sober, opportunity 
for advancement was near at hand. 

His entrance into another position was 
smoothed for him, but the power of drink 
was upon him and but for the influence of a 
friend he would have been dismissed. Finally 
no power could save him. He was dismissed 
in disgrace. 

This continued for several years, opportu- 
nities being opened over and over, only to be 
thrown away for drink, just as it would seem 
that great success was at hand. At one time, 
realizing that his promises and pledges were 
of no more power than his resolutions in 
breaking up the habit, Stelle took a gold cure, 
which nearly killed him. But inside of three 
months he had begun to drink again, believ- 
ing it was the sudden cessation which was 
affecting his health. At that time he kept 
from heavy drinking for nearly three years. 
Had he been told of the power of Christ to 
take it all away, he in all probability would 



A MAN'S UNDOING 101 

have turned to him. He knew that many 
times, when in dire extremity, sometimes when 
expecting arrest, sometimes when down and 
out, he had cried unto God out of his despair 
and speedily the help had come ; but uniformly 
the pledges he made to heaven at such times 
were forgotten as readily as they were made. 
From a backward view Stelle realizes that at 
such times God really visited him and would 
have saved him had he surrendered. 

When his health gave out he returned to 
his old home and was received with all the 
love that fond parents could bestow; but 
though he made a pretense of religion, it was 
no more than a form, perhaps not wholly sin- 
cere. When he went west again he soon for- 
got it, and other forms of sin led to the drink, 
and in a little time he was as bad as ever. 

A great many times he had been led into 
crooked deeds to secure money to keep up his 
dissipation, but now the adversary seemed to 
take full control of his will, and he plunged 
into evil hard to realize now. He had been 
placed in a position of trust, where he was 
under a ten-thousand-dollar bond, and had 
accepted the responsibility, though he had 
said to himself that he never would handle 
money for others, knowing his weakness when 
the drink was in control. In an emergency, 



102 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

when he needed a considerable sum, the first 
step was taken. Restraint seemed let loose 
then, and his debauches were frequent and 
frightful. Still he held his job, and it was sev- 
eral years before his superior learned that 
he drank at all; how it happened Stelle could 
not fathom, since he kept a bottle in the office 
constantly. 

About this period he was chaffing over a 
friend who found it necessary to provide a 
large amount of whisky to last over Sunday, 
when the bartender interrupted and declared 
that Stelle drank as much as the other man, 
and proved a consumption of over a quart 
of whisky a day. It staggered but did not 
stop him. 

"I was so completely under the power of 
drink that I would have robbed myself to get 
it, failing any other way," he says. "I could 
scarcely pass the saloons where I was in the 
habit of going; in fact, I had a regular route 
that I visited every day, hoping in this way 
to conceal the amount I was drinking. But 
I could not deceive myself." Of course there 
was an end to this. In time he was discov- 
ered, both in his drinking and his crooked- 
ness. The latter he settled, but the drink- 
ing went on. He had been placed in a 
more responsible position in the meantime, in 



A MAN'S UNDOING 103 

which he handled large sums of money, though 
not in cash. At one time he signed a check 
for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars 
in the course of business; sums of one third 
and one half that amount were frequent. He 
also directed the expenditure of very large 
amounts, something like one hundred thou- 
sand dollars a year. At this time he had ceased 
his crooked dealings and declared he would 
be straight, but out of the past years his 
crookedness rose up to undo him and his 
chances of promotion. One day he faced a 
charge of forgery and was forced to admit 
that it was even worse than was known. He 
was allowed to settle, as has been stated. To 
settle he had to "borrow" from funds in his 
possession belonging to another — a trust ac- 
count — which he hoped to make good, with 
other sums he had taken from the same 
source. He was never in a position to pay 
back a penny ; instead he took more and more 
until it was practically all gone. 

Stelle had gone into business after losing 
the place of trust, with bright prospects; but 
he kept up with the drink and that soon put 
him out of business. Then began a long de- 
bauch which ended only in disaster and ruin, 
and, blessed be His name, in salvation, for 
the transition was sudden. 



104 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

One day Stelle thought some of his "bor- 
rowings" had been discovered. The Evil One 
told him that if he did not clear out quickly 
he would get into jail. Keally there was no 
such impending peril, but "the wicked flee 
when no man pursueth," and for the second 
time in his career he fled from home by night. 
He had a large sum of money in his posses- 
sion which did not belong to him, but he 
was too much under the influence of liquor 
to care. Besides he needed the money to get 
away. The memory of that flight is hazy, but 
it ended in New York city. The devil kept 
telling him that if it came to the worst there 
was suicide. Many times in recent months 
Stelle had longed for death, but had not 
dared to attempt it. But he had prayed 
God to take him out of the hell in which he 
was living. 

"I was in such a nervous condition that 
awful hallucinations came to me," said Stelle. 
"I had dreadful visions and dreams and 
would awake with a start, imagining I was 
on the brink of an abyss or that some horror 
was hanging over me. I would lay awake for 
hours, tossing about in bed, and the devil sug- 
gested frightful crimes, from which only the 
hand of God could have saved me. On my 
flight I kept a bottle of whisky constantly at 



A MAN'S UNDOING 105 

hand. It was my custom when traveling to 
have a bottle in the hammock of my berth; 
when I awakened, if I did not have whisky I 
suffered agonies. In those hours many times 
I asked God to take me out of the world 
some way." 

The devil thought he was driving Stelle to 
a place where he must end his miserable 
existence, but he overreached himself. Really 
he was driving him to the gates of heaven. 



CHAPTER XI 
Up and Doing 

When Stelle arrived in New York city he 
sought a hotel where he had been accustomed 
to stay years before, for he thought no one 
would know him after twenty years, and he 
registered under an assumed name, taking 
that of a former chum. He did little but 
drink, sleeping off one drunk after another. 
In a few days he met an old-time friend who 
did not recognize him. The man was a mil- 
lionaire, but had been on a continuous drunk 
for a year or two, with no thought of stopping 
it — without desire to do it, and without the 
slightest idea that it was possible to stop. 
He had tried various cures and knew their 
impotency to take away the appetite for 
strong drink. 

By degrees Stelle worked himself into the 
confidence of the man, calling up things from 
the past to prove that they had once been 
friends and drinking companions, and from 
that time he was a fairly constant companion 
of the millionaire drunkard. Many a time 
he helped the man home. On such occasions 
his friend Gillen grew confidential and re- 

106 



UP AND DOING 107 

marked that Stelle had better let up in his 
drinking or he would go broke. 

"I cannot possibly spend all my income," 
Gillen would say, "not even if I paid all the 
bills for all our crowd and kept it up year 
in and year out. But you have no right to 
spend your money to buy diamonds for the 
bartender." 

As a matter of fact, Gillen usually paid 
all the checks for drinks and lunches for 
the crowd which hung about him, including 
Stelle. The latter soon learned that all but 
one or two were grafters, who were after the 
old man's money. He learned that several 
of them had already "touched" him for sums 
in the hundreds and were planning to get 
more. Gillen, in spite of his drinking, had 
some idea of all this, but under the mellow- 
ing influence of the cup he was loquacious 
and generous. 

After a couple of weeks of this Gillen told 
Stelle that one of the men wanted to borrow 
a considerable sum to put into a small busi- 
ness, but that he doubted whether it would 
be a good investment. 

"Will you go in there and look after my 
interests if I make the investment?" asked 
Gillen. 

This was the very opportunity Stelle had 



108 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

been awaiting. "Sure thing," he replied; 
"if there's anything in it." 

Then Gillen asked Stelle to look over the 
business and report as to its possibilities, 
and an appointment was made for the pur- 
pose by Gillen. 

Stelle thought he saw a way to handle that 
cash, and perhaps some more, and also 
thought he knew who eventually would have 
the money if all went along smoothly. 

There were some things he had not counted 
on, however. To carry out his plan he felt 
that he must keep a clear head — at least that 
was necessary to successfully investigate the 
business. That was the sole reason why he 
went to bed early one night, that he might 
awake semi-sober and get through with the in- 
vestigation before Gillen put in an appearance. 
Gillen had been put to bed early, in bad 
shape. He had confided to his friend that he 
felt that he would have to "cut out" his heavy 
drinking. 

"I'm beginning to see things," he said, "and 
I guess after a few days I will go up to my 
country house, where there is no whisky and 
where a doctor can pull me around into 
shape. If I don't, I'll die," he said. 

Providence ordered that next day Gillen 
should be kept in bed and in a condition such 



UP AND DOING 109 

that he could transact no business. Because 
he was nearer sober than he had been in 
months, and because he was impatient when 
Gillen did not appear to hear the report, Stelle 
began to reflect, and came to a realization of 
his condition, of where he was, of what he 
had been doing, and of the awful sins against 
society and individuals of which he had been 
guilty in recent times. When he consulted 
his purse he found that "the roll" he had 
brought out of the West had so far been spent 
that unless it were replenished quickly he 
would be down and out. He fully expected 
to do that as soon as he saw Gillen. God 
ordered otherwise. 

Learning that Gillen was too ill to see any- 
one before morning, Stelle concluded that he 
would look for a position, never doubting 
that he would get one at the first newspaper 
office he visited. To fortify himself for the 
interview he took several drinks on the way — 
so many, in fact, that when he reached the 
office he realized, with his hand upon the 
doorknob, that it was useless to enter, such 
was his condition. He groaned as he turned 
away and bemoaned the habit that bound him. 
That was an opportunity for the adversary. 

"You know you came down here to end 
your life when your money gave out; why 



110 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

don't you do it?" This was the way Satan 
argued with Stelle. "You cannot hope for 
any more chances; there are none. You have 
had more than most men in your time and 
you threw them all away. Life does not have 
any more for you. Besides, you couldn't keep 
sober. The best thing for you is the river 
or some other way of suicide. Better do it 
to-night, while you are in the mood for it." 

Stelle had to admit that he had tried over 
and over and had failed as many times; that 
life itself had been distorted, had become a 
hell upon earth, and while he meditated, torn 
by conflicting emotions, the devil said to him : 
"Now just take another drink and then go 
down to the river. You can get on a ferryboat 
and slip overboard in the middle of the river 
and no one will be the wiser, and it will be 
over quickly. There is no need for you to 
suffer such remorse." 

Poor, foolish Stelle! Bargaining with the 
worst enemy he had! But then, he had sold 
himself long before. So he took two drinks, 
instead of one, and went upon a ferryboat 
over which he had traveled many times in 
years past while en route to scenes of riotous 
living where he could see "life." And here 
he was, seeking death. 

But when the boat was in midstream his 



UP AND DOING 111 

courage had vanished. The river was full of 
floating ice, for it was midwinter, and an ex- 
ceptionally cold season. 

"It would kill me to jump into that cold 
water," he said, forgetting for the moment 
that this was what he wanted most of all. 

That night he drank heavier than usual 
and went to his room at midnight vowing 
that he would not leave it until carried out. 
Sitting on the bed half dressed, Stelle sought 
a means whereby he could fulfill the devil's 
orders, and finally a plan was suggested which 
he thought he could carry out, since there 
was little pain to it. He arose to finish dis- 
robing, but before he had finished this he was 
on his knees sobbing out to God his desire to 
have another chance to live, and this time 
to live right. 

"I never can tell what made me do that," 
he said afterward; "why from a contempla- 
tion of death should spring such a strong 
desire to live. I do not know whether it was 
some reflex of the youthful days in church 
and Sunday school and the precepts fastened 
in my heart by teacher and pastor; whether 
mother was praying for her wandering boy 
just then and her petition reached the Throne ; 
but I know that Jesus was out on the moun- 
tain that night seeking the lost sheep and 



112 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

that a cry went up to heaven, 'Kejoice, for 
the Lord brings back his own.' 

"I do not know how long I was on my 
knees; I only know that as I pleaded with 
God a panorama of past evil flashed before 
me, revealing all the awful deeds, appalling 
as I beheld them. I know too that the lesson 
of faith learned as a boy could not be swept 
away by the adversary, who, you may be sure, 
kept near me, and I know that there came a 
time when I could stand up and say, 'Praise 
God/ for I felt that he had given me one more 
chance. 

"I did not know then that God had saved 
me from being a drunkard. I knew that I 
did not want a drink ; but I supposed with the 
morning the thirst would return. When I 
went to bed, for the first time in months I 
slept peacefully. Not once did I awake with 
a craving for whisky, the regular thing with 
me. There was a bottle on the table within 
reach, but it was not molested. When I 
awoke in the morning I had no 'big head/ and 
/ didn't want a drink. I thought it was 
strange, but it had not dawned upon me that 
this was an answer to my prayer." 

Before Stelle met Gillen that day he had 
changed the form of the report he was to 
make. Somehow he realized that he could 



UP AND DOING 113 

not do what he had contemplated. When they 
met an adverse report was made in a few 
syllables and all chance of getting a part of 
Gillen's money vanished. 

"Do you want a drink?" asked Gillen. 

Usually the invitation had been "Come on," 
but there must have been something about 
Stelle that made Gillen change this. When 
a negative reply was given Gillen took Stelle 
by the arm and started for the bar, telling 
him that one would not hurt. But when it 
was served it did not taste right, and more 
than half the drink remained in the glass. 
Several times later Stelle allowed himself to 
be urged to drink, with the same result, and 
finally he decided that he had better not tempt 
the old appetite. 

Being nearly broke, Stelle left the hotel 
for a room in a cheap lodging house, paying 
for three nights. At the end of that time he 
was flat broke and learned what it meant to 
walk the streets in midwinter, cold and tired 
and famished. By pawning a few trifles he 
had with him he kept from starving, feeding 
on a two-and-one-half-cent loaf of bread for 
a day, when nothing better offered, on free 
lunch, or going hungry. Work he could not 
get, try as he would. 

One stormy night, when there was nothing 



114 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

left to pawn and the bitter cold pierced him 
through and through, and he was discouraged 
by the disappointments of the day, Satan 
came again and told Stelle: "You see; it 
wasn't any use, after all. You think you are 
going to live right, but there is no chance for 
you to do it. You had better carry out what 
you planned the other night." 

It did seem as though no chance remained. 
That night, as he walked through Washing- 
ton Square and up Fifth Avenue, his custom- 
ary route — for in his misery Stelle shunned 
others — there was another struggle, and again 
heaven sent its forces to his succor. At last, 
after many blocks were traversed, Stelle was 
able to hold up his hand to heaven and ex- 
claim: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust 
in him." 

And as he looked up the clouds parted for 
a moment revealing a patch of blue and a 
brilliant star. Half in a dream he looked to 
see where he was and saw that he was before 
the Methodist building, and that brought 
recollections of home and the old church there. 
Half an hour later Stelle had money in his 
pocket, come by honestly, in return for a 
slight service of courtesy. The money came 
from a young swell, who, with a woman com- 
panion, had been lingering over the wineglass 



UP AND DOING 115 

in a high-priced restaurant, and whose tongue 
was thick as he asked Stelle, by way of re- 
turn courtesy, if he would not have a drink. 

"No," was the reply, "I don't drink. I used 
to until it robbed me of everything, and Fve 
quit, with God's help." 

"Guess you are right," said the stranger, 
who was taken aback by Stelle's first testi- 
mony. The next moment he was peeling off 
one of a roll of bills, which he handed to 
Stelle with the remark that he hoped it would 
do the latter good, and he was welcome to it. 

The next day Stelle found a place, humble 
enough, in an addressing establishment, and 
the night he drew his first pay — just about 
equal to what both before and after he had 
earned in a single day of fewer hours — he 
went to a mission to which he had been in- 
vited by a card given out at a church to which 
he had gone. During the week he had at- 
tended a Salvation Army meeting and gave 
a second testimony by inviting a forlorn man 
to give his heart to God. The man refused, 
with thanks, but months later stopped Stelle 
on the street and thanked him for the invi- 
tation ; then he revealed who he was, a crimi- 
nal of international reputation, who was try- 
ing to live honestly. 

When Stelle went to the mission he found 



116 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

himself in a room in which he had spent 
many hours drinking; the one from which 
years before he had helped out two compan- 
ions; united the three were able to walk; it 
is doubtful if either could have done so alone. 

Familiar songs were sung in the mission, 
some of which he had not heard since child- 
hood, but there was not much else to interest 
until a man stood up and declared that he 
was a redeemed drunkard. Then he told a 
story which paralleled Stelle's history in 
many particulars. It was Eev. S. H. Hadley, 
for whom the mission has been named since 
his death. 

To Stelle this seemed like a revelation of 
Jesus's love for him. "Now I know why I 
don't want to drink," he said ; "yes, and I will 
never have to drink again," he continued. 

As the story unfolded a great joy came into 
his soul and he received a great draught of 
the living waters, and the very gates of heaven 
seemed to unfold as in a vision. 

That is many years ago. To-day Stelle is 
a member of a Methodist church, restored 
to almost all that sin had taken from him, 
is prosperous and happy. The old church in 
which as a boy he was nurtured has made 
him a local preacher and he is never ashamed 
to tell the story of his redemption. Under 



UP AND DOING 117 

God his ministry has been blessed as he has 
told of what Jesus did for him when he was 
a sinner and an outcast of society, and he has 
had the joy of leading others to the same 
Saviour. His favorite song is that which Mr. 
Hadley sang that first night in the mission : 

O, it is wonderful, very, very wonderful, 

All his grace so rich and free; 
O, it is wonderful, very, very wonderful, 

All his love and grace to me. 



CHAPTER XII 

Cowboy Baronet Turns Soldier 

"Young man, do you ever give a thought 
to your soul's salvation? Suppose you should 
drop dead in such a place; what do you think 
would become of your soul ; what would your 
mother think when she heard of it?" 

A Salvation Army soldier with a bundle 
of papers under her arm had pushed through 
the swinging doors of the resort, which was 
not of the highest type, and approached one 
after another of the loungers with request to 
buy her wares. Before one, who patronized 
her, she paused long enough to put her 
pointed questions; then, when the one ad- 
dressed manifested embarrassment, she gave 
him a card with the address of one of the halls 
of the city, accompanied by an invitation to 
come and see what they did in the Army. 

"I'll be if I — excuse me, young woman 

— that is — I'll come." 

He was a handsome young fellow, tall and 
of rugged build, bronzed by contact with the 
sun and wind and storms of the plains and 
of the sea. He looked every inch a man, as 
he leaned on the bar rail, but of a man gone 

118 



COWBOY BARONET 119 

wrong, for there was no mistaking the fact 
that his rollicking spirit came from the bot- 
tle behind the bar. 

Next night found him at the meeting place. 
He had left his companions rather abruptly 
the night previously after the Salvation Army 
girl had passed on, and had gone to his room 
without taking another drink. Nor did he 
feel like eating his customary lunch before 
retiring. Thoughts of retiring, in fact, had 
not come to him, for he was troubled — 
troubled as he had never been before in his 
life of ups and downs as sailor, soldier, and 
cowpuncher, among other things. He could 
not forget the question put to him in the saloon, 
try as he would. He was not accustomed to 
think of such things, but he could not think of 
anything else now. The frank face of the girl 
and her earnestness as she addressed him, as 
well as her strange interrogation, had com- 
pletely upset him. 

He mused over the matter long and decided 
to attend the meeting. For two weeks he sat 
and listened to the simple presentation of the 
gospel by officers and converts. It surprised 
him, for he had never heard personal reli- 
gion so dealt with. As he listened he came 
to realize that, though religion such as he had 
come in contact with before had not appealed 



120 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

to him, yet there was something very at- 
tractive about the gospel of the lowly. It had 
in it something he had never dreamed of in 
all his wild and varied career. 

One night, in the solitude of the hall room 
he occupied, he knelt beside his bed and with 
tears in his eyes and tears in his heart he 
uttered the prayer of the penitent, and a new 
song, begun in heaven, echoed within his 
breast. The following night he stood up in 
the meeting and told what he had done and 
of his desire to become a soldier at once. 
Shortly afterward he was enrolled in another 
corps, located more conveniently, and soon 
was made janitor, his business being to clean 
the place, with the help of converts, to dust 
the benches, distribute the song books, and, 
as he had a good voice, lead the music, and 
tell the story of his conversion, both in the 
open-air service and that within the hall. 

This man is a baronet, of the bluest of 
England's blue blood, twelfth in succession to 
the title and estates, but preferring an officer's 
title in the work he has chosen for his future 
occupation. He became a candidate for a 
commission with every prospect of receiv- 
ing it in due season. 

The baronet was born into one of the finest 
of the English noble families. His remote 



COWBOY BARONET 121 

ancestors had come with the invaders under 
William the Conqueror, from Normandy. 
More than two hundred and fifty years ago 
the crown created the baronetcy, which is 
fifth oldest in the list of all England. The 
ancestral estates were ample and highly valu- 
able, and beautifully situated, but heavily 
encumbered. One of his ancestors had been 
a spendthrift and plastered on the mortgages. 

Pride of birth counted for naught with the 
lad who afterward became celebrated the 
world around as the Cowboy Baronet, for he 
was born with a roving disposition — a wan- 
derlust far in excess of that which possesses 
all boys — and he gave it full sway. At four- 
teen he became a cadet on a training ship 
of the British navy and might have been an 
officer to-day; but it was too slow for the 
spirited boy, its monotonous routine, and 
the stern discipline too tedious, and so he 
stole away. He shipped for two years on a 
whaler, and before he left the vessel had been 
twice around the world. 

His father thought him hopelessly bad and 
despaired of making anything out of him. 
At sixteen, after his world trips, he had be- 
come familiar with the worst of every port 
where the ship touched; he had lived among 
a set of men of the hardest type of sailors 



122 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

for two years, had learned to drink and to 
participate in all the other vices to which 
Jack Tar is habituated. 

Next he enlisted in the Hussars under Gen- 
eral Baden-Powell, and served five years in 
India. He had grown to be a brawny young 
man, a hard drinker, and his own father would 
not have known him, or, had he recognized 
him, it would have been to disown him. 

When his enlistment was over a gold ex- 
citement was in progress in the hills of north- 
ern India and the baronet went there. He 
worked at Kola for several months, living the 
life of a miner, drinking and carousing with 
the oldest and toughest of the lot, ready for 
a scrap at any time and quite as likely as not 
to come out best man. He seemed to love to 
fight for the fight's sake, and used to say that 
he enjoyed being knocked down more than 
any other man he knew. 

In spite of his prodigality he returned 
home with considerable money. Lavish ex- 
penditure upon himself and liberality with 
others soon took it all. When his last pound 
was gone he enlisted for home service, but 
it was too quiet. He borrowed money on his 
prospects from those who make it a business 
to loan to the nobility and bought his freedom 
from the army. Strange that to-day he is 



COWBOY BARONET 123 

making his way into another army, paying 
for his training to become an officer. 

Then he borrowed more thousands from 
the same sources, lived at the clubs and en- 
deavored to play the society man. He was 
encouraged by some anxious mammas, who 
did not know his history, nor that his pros- 
pects were hopelessly involved. Though he 
cut quite a dash for a time, it palled on him, 
for pink teas, the idle gossip of the drawing 
room and the dawdling of the club, though 
relieved by nights of dissipation and revelry, 
soon became too tame to the man whose red 
corpuscles had been set tingling by the ad- 
venture of a whaling ship and the excitement 
of the mining camp. He left again. 

This time it was to Africa he went, but 
his inspection was brief, as he did not like 
the country ; and so he came to America. He 
had heard weird tales of cowboy life on the 
plains and it attracted him. It was but a 
few weeks before he was astride a broncho, 
clad in sombrero, blue shirt, and "chaps," a 
red bandana knotted about his neck, a brace 
of revolvers and a cartridge belt completing 
the picture, precisely as depicted by Rem- 
ington and Dan Moran. 

When he was not "working" the cattle, 
breaking ponies, or engaged in the roundup, 



124 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

or shooting up some frontier town, he prob- 
ably was in Denver, at one of the best hotels, 
showering his money about as though the 
supply were unlimited. Despite the uncouth 
dress of the plains, his undoubted gentility 
and his money gained him an entree to hotels 
and clubs, and society even sought him. 
Then back to the cow camp on Half-Circle-B 
ranch until he was ready for another whirl. 

He outfitted with the Arrowhead ranch in 
Wyoming for a time and transferred his at- 
tentions to Cheyenne. After a time he moved 
to Arizona, and, while he was foreman on 
the G-bar-C ranch, he was made sheriff of 
Cochise County, than which no more lawless 
county existed in that period. Eenegades, 
outlaws, horse thieves, and train robbers in- 
fested the county, and gun play was fre- 
quent. The man who could draw his gun first 
survived; they planted the other man beneath 
a cactus. The baron maintained order as 
well as any of his predecessors. 

The breaking out of the Spanish-American 
war offered fresh opportunity for excitement. 
He tried to get in the Roosevelt Eough Riders, 
but had not been on the range long enough, 
and the best he could do was to enlist to 
command a pack train going to Porto Rico, 
under General Miles. He saw little of real 



COWBOY BARONET 125 

war, but it kept him supplied with adventure, 
and he remained in the service until the war 
was over; then he returned to England. 

A few days sufficed to satisfy his longing 
for the old home; then he obtained a place 
as quartermaster on an Oriental steamship 
and returned to India. He enlisted again 
and was sent to the Chinese border, where 
there always is unrest. He had hardly set- 
tled down to the post routine when the Boxer 
rebellion broke out across the border. The 
garrison was too small to fight the fanatical 
Chinese, but did good service in its retreat 
by gathering up the scattered missionaries 
and other foreigners and protecting them 
while en route out of the danger zone. He 
saw more excitement before the Boxer trouble 
had ended, when he was discharged from the 
service. 

A year in the Burmah jungles, hunting wild 
animals for the mere sport of killing, was his 
next diversion. It was said that he slew 
more wild game than that other former cow- 
boy who spent some time in Africa more 
recently and was celebrated as a "mighty 
hunter." When this thirst for blood was sati- 
ated the baronet returned to India, but a long- 
ing for more American adventures came upon 
him and he was soon back in the cow 



126 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

camps of the West. He drifted farther and 
farther away from the frontier of civiliza- 
tion, hid himself in the remote camps, and 
was lost sight of; when he wanted extra ex- 
citement he went to some mining camp instead 
of the large cities. 

Because he hid himself away, when his 
father died, in 1907, it was months before the 
news reached him through an English paper 
which had been sent to another Englishman, 
a neighbor, sixty miles across the range. Sev- 
eral years before his elder brother, heir to 
the title and estates, had died, so that the 
cowboy was now a real baronet. He made a 
spectacular trip to England to claim his 
rights, but found that he could hope for but 
little income from the estates, owing to the 
encumbrances, which absorbed the rents for 
interest. The ancestral home was leased and 
he set out to acquire a fortune large enough 
to pay the mortgages and redeem his prop- 
erty. He stopped in London, however, until 
he had spent the money made by selling his 
"life story' ' to a newspaper syndicate, and 
then attached himself to a Wild West show 
as a rider. This did not go very far toward 
paying off the mortgages, and he hit upon a 
new plan. 

Arriving in state on an Atlantic liner at 



COWBOY BARONET 127 

an American port, he summoned the ship 
news reporters and bade them announce that 
he had come to marry a rich American girl. 
His requirements, as printed by the reporters, 
were so absurd that not one girl nibbled at 
the bait : the ancestral halls, the title of Lady 
and her recognition at the English court. 

A moving picture photographer hired him 
to do "thrillers" before the camera, giving 
him a salary large enough to keep him in drinks 
and permit of a considerable amount of high 
life. One of his more recent stunts was to 
ride into a city saloon dressed in cowboy 
costume, bringing terror to all within, for he 
blazed away with his revolvers in a harmless 
way and everyone thought a real holdup was 
in progress. 

This was the life he was leading when the 
Salvation Army girl crossed his path. After 
his conversion his whole life changed. He lost 
his desire to drink and carouse and led so 
quiet an existence that he was forgotten ex- 
cept by a few. His only appearance in the 
lime-light of the press was when his connec- 
tion with the army was discovered by a 
reporter who had met him years before. 
When he was given a minor office in the Army 
he celebrated it by an "English Evening," 
which was attended by several of noble birth 



128 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

and many others of his countrymen. He 
hopes when he has earned a commission to 
be assigned as a missionary to visit some of 
the places and classes with which he has be- 
come familiar during his wanderings. He no 
longer prizes his rank, preferring to be a 
soldier of the heavenly kingdom to occupying 
a place in the court of the greatest earthly 
king. 

A tent or a cottage, why should I care? 
They're building a palace for me over there; 
Though far from my home, yet still I can sing, 
"All glory and praise! I'm a child of a King." 



CHAPTER XIII 
Got What He Wanted 

"I want some of that." 

"That" happened to be salvation, and the 
speaker had just heard a man tell how he had 
been saved from his rebellious life. 

He had not come for salvation, but money ; 
he had been sent, with a letter of introduc- 
tion signed by the leader, to see a man earlier 
in the day, but God had ordered that his 
errand should fail. The one he would see was 
away, they told him, but would be back in 
the evening. Having drank heavily before 
the call, he started out to find some one who 
knew him, to get enough money to last until 
evening. Then he expected to ask for ten 
dollars. 

Burns had been a prosperous business man, 
but became a failure because of his habits. 
However, he had many friends and had been 
able to secure five or ten dollars a day from 
them while he was on the spree. He was 
much disappointed not to find the missionary 
at home, for he had been told that the latter 
never turned anyone away. He must have 
drink, however, and he went to find a man 

X29 



130 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

who had been his foreman a short time be- 
fore. 

Somehow God had placed many obstacles 
in the path of Burns that day ; he had missed 
one man, and now his foreman was broke. 
He had paid out his last dollar for appliances 
for a shop he was opening, but gave a quarter. 
When that was spent for drinks — his last — 
Burns went back to wait for the missionary. 
Just how he got there Burns could never 
figure out. He was not accustomed to the 
locality, and he was so under the influence 
of liquor that his mind was almost a blank, 
except for the purpose of his errand' — to bor- 
row. 

He awakened, nevertheless, in a room with 
many others, most of them in bad shape, some 
of them as drunk as himself; but he did not 
even then realize fully the nature of the place 
he was in. He had not been told that this 
"easy" man was the superintendent of a mis- 
sion. 

Sitting close to him was a red-headed Irish- 
man, whose one plaint was that he "wished 
he could get a bed ticket." Still expecting to 
get the ten dollars, Burns volunteered to see 
that his neighbor was sent to bed. He held 
on to his letter of introduction and later had 
an opportunity to present it, for the mission- 



GOT WHAT HE WANTED 131 

ary came to him when he learned Burns 
wanted to see him. 

"What can I do for you?" he asked after 
the letter was read. 

"I have been drinking too much," said 
Burns, "and I want to sober up and go back 
to my business. I think I can do it on ten 
dollars." 

"Is that all you want?" said the missionary. 

"O, if he only knew how impossible it is 
for me to get sober, or stay sober, he wouldn't 
say all/' thought Burns. The next moment 
the missionary in tones of love and sympathy 
said: 

"What you need, my dear brother, is Jesus 
Christ as your Friend and Saviour; He will 
sober you up so that you will never want 
another drink." 

But Burns did not believe in Jesus Christ. 
He had scoffed at things religious for a number 
of years. Although his early training had 
been from Christian parents, in England, he 
had become more interested in the theories 
of Darwin and the speculations of Paine and 
Mill and Ingersoll, and had said that there 
was no God. Then, a few years later, he had 
found a god of his own in the form of alcohol 
and worshiped it faithfully. After a time he 
had shifted to America to see if things would 



132 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

not go along better there. His idol came on 
the same steamer, and, being a jealous god, 
demanded constant service. 

A brother in America was prospering in a 
line of bakeries in two adjoining cities, since 
made one. Burns went with him, mastered 
the business, and, on the death of the brother, 
succeeded to the ownership. He was making 
money faster than he had ever dreamed of 
doing. But his habit was growing, too, and 
demanded a larger and larger quota of the 
profits and time of the owner. 

There have been wars because of tribute 
levied on a subject people and bloody battles 
fought ere the tyrant nation was ousted, for 
mankind ever has hated to be subject to such 
rule. Yet without opposition, almost, we per- 
mit King Alcohol to demand a tribute which 
even the wildest vagaries of ancient potentate 
never conceived of, tribute not alone in money 
— incomprehensible heaps of gold — but in 
quotas of slaves each year far in excess of any 
in history, to say nothing of the maimed and 
dead in long lists. Who will sound anew the 
tocsin for the fight to throw off this terrible 
yoke? 

Finally Burns had to give up business, or 
it gave him up — which is much the same un- 
der such circumstances — and now his idol 



GOT WHAT HE WANTED 133 

absorbed all his time. He was a good servitor. 
This was his condition when God led him after 
something he did not get — money — and gave 
him something he didn't want, but which he 
found, to his amazement, was the very thing 
he had been seeking all along. 

No one but the man who has gone through 
the experience can understand the abject 
slavery of the rum curse. What a mistake 
to think that men made in God's own image, 
and endowed with many faculties, are drunk- 
ards because they prefer it. At some stage 
of the habit they would run if they thought 
they would never want another drink from 
any reason. But when the habit has become 
slavery, not one but writhes and cries out for 
freedom. Happy he who finds the Author 
of Liberty at this time. How Burns would 
have hailed some specific which offered to 
cure him of drinking! He knew he could 
prosper when sober. It was equally apparent 
that he could do nothing worth doing while 
a drunkard. 

A man in such a state is between two fires, 
both of consuming intensity: his every fiber 
demands the drink, every nerve demands its 
stupefying solace. He simply must have the 
drink. One drink, however, will not still the 
nerves ; there must be another, and another, and 



134 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

then more, until the narcotic brings cessation 
of consciousness. On the other side the flame 
of remorse burns brightly. When the brain is 
clogged with alcohol frightful visions come; 
when thought runs free terrible depression 
comes, and but one way seems open — to drown 
the sensibilities by more drink. To use a 
gambler's phrase: "Either way he plays he 
loses." 

The man with the demon within may strug- 
gle to free himself, may try cures of many 
kinds; but "this kind cometh not out save by 
fasting and prayer." None but the Great 
Physician can heal in such extremity, and 
Burns at last was in his presence. 

When he heard men tell of the miracles of 
healing he wanted to be made whole, and cried 
out. O, the soul agony in that cry, the faith 
— believing for the very work's sake— em- 
bodied in his appeal. And He who spake to 
another unfortunate, "According to your 
faith be it done unto you," heard the cry. 
Quicker than the utterance came the answer, 
and the hungry soul had found what he 
wanted at last. 

He had not been freed of the demon, as 
yet, and the penitent form was assailed by 
doubts and fears. 

"You praying?" said the Tempter; "why, 



GOT WHAT HE WANTED 135 

you know you don't believe in prayer. What 
good is it going to do you?" 

Burns got up from his knees several times 
before the perfect work of the Spirit was ac- 
complished within him and the victory gained, 
with all the deliverance and joy which the 
knowledge of sins forgiven brings. 

A doctor who had studied the effect of alco- 
hol upon the human system for a temperance 
organization sat through a meeting one Sun- 
day and heard men tell of instantaneous re- 
lease from the drink curse, and heard the 
man on the platform promise rum-soaked men 
that they could, if they chose, go from the 
room and never want another drink. She 
approached the missionary at the close of the 
meeting with a request for an interview. 
When they were alone the doctor said : "How 
can you tell those poor men what you did? 
I am a physician and have studied alcohol's 
effect on the stomach." Then followed a de- 
tailed description of the ulcerations in the 
drunkard's stomach and other conditions and 
the declaration that no power could still the 
cry of that stomach for alcohol until long 
treatment had healed its sores. 

The doctor was very earnest. She talked 
rapidly and with considerable vehemence, 
closing with a repetition of the question: 



136 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

"How can you tell those poor men these things 
when you must know it is not so?" 

The missionary knew little of medical 
science, but he knew that in the twinkling of 
an eye he had forgotten the desire for a drink. 
As the doctor rattled on, the marvel of the 
miracle grew upon him. When she had fin- 
ished he burst forth: "Praise the Lord! I 
never knew before that he had given me a new 
stomach." 

The doctor fled. 

So it had been with Burns. While he knelt 
the bonds were removed and he never again 
felt the desire for drink. Science said it was 
impossible, but with Him all things are pos- 
sible, and the deed was done. 

For many years the unbeliever has been 
telling of the power of God unto salvation. 
He is the head of the mission where he found 
release and is constantly drawing men toward 
that same fountain of power. Gathered 
around him in the work is a strong band of 
men who have come up from bondage into the 
promised land under his ministration and 
have proved that He is the power of God unto 
salvation unto everyone that believeth. 

He has never made as much money as he 
did before he became a drunkard, but he is 
laying up treasure incorruptible, and, what 



GOT WHAT HE WANTED 137 

is far more important, others are profiting by 
his work. He has some of the noblest Chris- 
tian men in the world behind his work — men 
whose names are known in financial and com- 
mercial life. Somehow, drunkards and crooks 
seem to gravitate to the mission, led by the 
Spirit, whose seal of approval is, after all, 
the most important feature of the work. 



CHAPTER XIV 

A Life Sentence 

Roberts had not been born a thief, but he 
had gravitated into that life very naturally, 
and for half a century he had kept the police 
of many cities alert — when he was not in jail 
and, therefore, the cause of no alarm. 

He had entered the world in an Eastern 
city, had been orphaned early in life, and had 
been forced into the thick of the struggle for 
existence when wholly unfitted to cope with 
the problems which he must solve day by day, 
and was handicapped by the lack of the loving 
counsel of father and mother. Thrown into 
the streets, he became a newsboy, bootblack, 
errand boy, doing that which came nearest to 
his hand, and, somehow, managed to wrest 
from the world a meager living. But often 
it was a hallway or a truck for a bed, and often 
a lingering look in a bakery window was as 
near as he came to acquiring a meal. 

With this beginning, it was small wonder 
that he grew into a sneak thief and pickpocket. 
It was easy to snatch a handful of peanuts, 
an apple, or an orange from the pushcart, and 
then to run, giving the cart a push, to make 

138 



A LIFE SENTENCE 139 

sure that the owner would be fully occupied 
in keeping his stock from the street, and so 
could not give chase. It was easy to slip 
through an open window, or an unfastened 
door, or over a transom, and hide under his 
coat some article negotiable at the pawnshop. 

One day, looking for an opportunity to 
plunder, he saw a safe he thought he could 
open. That night he did the job and found it 
was easy. 

"What's the use of working when there's 
easy money like this?" he soliloquized. 
"What's the use of doing petty thieving, when 
in one night I can make as much opening safes 
as in a year at the old game?" 

The police had a new force to deal with. 
A new hand was at the game, a new yegg 
breaking safes. It was some time before the 
trail led so close to the culprit that he decided 
that his health required a change of climate. 

The genesis of the crook is rapid and easy; 
the turning away from the crooked to the 
straight path seldom comes early in his career. 
Many a weary day passed before Koberts was 
ready to mend his ways. 

It was not long before the police of the West 
found that a new safe burglar was operating 
here and there. There is such a distinct indi- 
viduality in the work of this class that the 



140 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

police always know when a new man blows 
open a safe, by the workmanship. Immune 
from arrest for a long time, Eoberts was 
brought to bay at last, and a prison term was 
given. Eeform? His experience in that 
prison brought no lasting desire. True, like 
the devil of the poetic fable, with monastic 
desires when ill, the prison bird had declared 
over and over that this would be his last time 
behind the bars; but once freed his first 
thought was where he could raise some money. 
Soon another safe was wrecked, and again 
the police were hunting the robber. Yet 
there was a difference : this time they thought 
they recognized the handiwork and they had 
a description and photograph of the suspect — 
it was before the days of the Bertillon system 
of registering crooks. 

For fifty years this had gone on. Roberts 
was not caught always, and he made many 
big hauls. Were some of his crimes enumer- 
ated the man would be recognized as one of 
the most daring and successful of his calling. 
The police were baffled more than once; more 
than twice they got their man, but could not 
prove their case, nor find the loot, though feel- 
ing certain that he had it. There were other 
times when a term in jail followed the trial. 

Prison, in time, will break the nerve of any 



A LIFE SENTENCE 141 

man. All safe robbers, after a few arrests, 
lose some of their confidence in their superior 
ability and attain a higher respect for the 
police; also, an intense hatred for such natu- 
ral enemies as the plain-clothes men. Eob- 
erts had tried his hand as highwayman and in 
second-story work, when a safe job was not 
pending, and he was in need of money. He 
was known to the police of a score of cities 
as a slick grafter and all-round crook. It was 
many years before he lost his nerve, but the 
time came when he felt himself no longer a 
match for the police. 

He changed his residence often, and, except 
when forced to do so by the police, rarely 
lingered long about the scene of his exploits, 
though return visits were not infrequent. 
Up and down the country, from coast to coast, 
from Lakes to Gulf, committing one class of 
crime here and another there, he moved along 
with the ceaseless tide of the criminals and 
the unemployed. 

Nearly twenty years ago he reached a 
Western city and was broke. He had been 
up in Minnesota grafting and it had become 
too warm for him, so he took what is known 
in the underworld as a "side-door Pullman," 
which is a stock or box car, bound for Chicago. 
He was put off the train in a Mississippi River 



142 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

city and was arrested at once by a policeman, 
who recognized him as an old-timer. The 
judge heard his story, but, there being no 
crime alleged, he was freed with a warning to 
leave the city immediately. He was willing 
to leave. He walked across the bridge to 
another city and was arrested again, the 
same program was repeated, and he walked 
to the third of the tri-city group. He saw 
that arrest awaited him there too, for the 
police were watching him. He knew that the 
justice of the peace in that place was a strong 
churchman and never let off anyone, and so 
he slipped into the railroad yards and took 
a box car again. He landed at the other end 
of the division with forty cents in his pocket 
and sought a former pal at his usual hang- 
ing-out place. 

"Gone out of town on a little job," said 
the bartender. "He'll be back in the morn- 
ing." 

Eoberts spent fifteen cents for supper and 
a quarter for a room in a lodging house, some- 
what below his usual standard. Next morn- 
ing he went out and "bummed" the price of 
a drink before going to locate his friend. But 
he knew that one of his reputation could not 
remain in the city many hours without being 
picked up by the police, so he decided to go 



A LIFE SENTENCE 143 

to headquarters and obtain permission to 
linger twenty-four hours. As he stood before 
the chief of the detective bureau he pleaded: 
"Chief, give me another chance, won't you? 
I'll get a job and go to work. If you won't 
do that, give me twenty-four hours so that 
I can find a friend who is out of town to-day. 
I can get some money from him and will go 
away and start over somewhere." 

"Roberts, I'm afraid to trust you twenty- 
four hours. When you come into the city 
you make trouble for us always. We cannot 
keep track of you. As for your going to 
work — bah! don't try to 'con' me." 

The chief was not hard-hearted, nor de- 
sirous of hounding a man whom he had tried 
to keep track of for years, but he did not 
believe that the man before him was really 
desirous of reforming. He had heard the 
same plea many times before, and where were 
the reformed ones? Though hardened by 
years of contact with the criminal classes, 
he had a heart within him, and willingly 
would have given the permission asked had 
he believed the applicant to be sincere. 

He thought he knew the man and could not 
see where there was a possibility of reforma- 
tion to one who had preyed on the public for 
fifty years. He knew the result of prison life 



144 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

in dwarfing a man's capabilities also, and 
knew the handicap of the man with a prison 
experience and record. 

Eoberts was crestfallen as he left the build- 
ing. What could he do and where could he 
go? He did not have a cent; it was midwinter 
and he was wearing still his last summer's 
clothes, and he pondered upon his hard lot. 
Whatever argument may be presented that 
there is no hell hereafter, the crook knows that 
there is one here; he lives there. Hell-fire 
sermons make little impression upon such; it 
is love that never faileth. 

Making for the railroad yards, expecting to 
leave the city, Eoberts happened to meet — no, 
there was no happen; it was God's appoint- 
ment — a man now a national character. Eob- 
erts had known him for years, first as a news- 
paper reporter, who had sought from the 
crook news of the underworld and had ac- 
quired a number of "exclusives" from that 
source. 

"Help me get a job," was the crook's plea, 
as he told his predicament. 

"Why, you do not want to work; what 
are you talking about? You would not take 
a job if I got one for you," said the friend. 

He thought Eoberts had been a crook so 
long that his was a hopeless case. There was 



A LIFE SENTENCE 145 

one man who thought the prodigal son was 
in like status. The plea was strong, however, 
and the crook and newspaper man started 
for the latter's office to consider the matter. 
Several detectives eyed Koberts on the ele- 
vated train, but his companion was known, 
and a nod reassured them. 

Going up in the elevator, the proprietor of 
a great enterprise located in the building was 
encountered. 

"Mr. Cole, I want to introduce you to an 
old friend of mine. He has been a crooked 
man, but is a pretty good sort of a fellow, 
and he says he wants to reform." 

This was the introduction and the crook's 
heart sank within him. "Surely," he thought, 
"this man will telephone to the police, and 
they will get me again for not leaving the 
city as they ordered." 

In the office the three sat down to talk it 
over. 

"I want you to put this man to work," the 
newspaper man said. "Give him a chance for 
my sake." 

"Come in to-morrow and I'll see what I can 
do for you," was the rather reluctant reply 
to this appeal. "I have no job that I know 
of, but I'll put you on the payroll for seven 
dollars a week, and every morning you can 



146 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

come in and get your dollar until I find a 
place for you." 

"I would have died before stealing a cent 
from that man after that," said Roberts. 

That night he met a former pal who had 
great news to tell him; how he had gotten 
into a mission and found out that there was 
a way to get out of the evil life. Roberts went 
with his friend, and for the first time heard 
the gospel of salvation for a crook. Men told 
how they had been drunkards and thieves and 
had become sober and honest through faith 
in Jesus Christ. Some of them he knew, and 
he could see that they were different. That 
night Roberts sought the same salvation and 
found it. 

The crook who had prided himself on his 
keenness of vision, and his ability to spot a 
detective two blocks away, had his eyes opened 
as truly as the blind man on the Jericho road, 
and what he saw was the same Jesus, with 
arms outstretched, much as he must have 
stood in that other day, ready to forgive all 
the dreadful past. He who had been in six 
different prisons for breaking the law became 
a prisoner again, but this time of One whose 
bondage is easy and whose burden is light. 
This time he received a life sentence and has 
never asked release on parole. 



A LIFE SENTENCE 147 

In a few days he was installed as porter by 
his new boss. A week later two detectives 
called at the office and told the proprietor the 
kind of a man he had in his employ. But 
Roberts had told first, what his friend had 
not, and the detectives were sent away dis- 
concerted, with the information that the pro- 
prietor knew more about his new porter than 
they did, and was satisfied. 

In time Roberts was advanced until he be- 
came receiving clerk, handling thousands of 
dollars' worth of goods each month and 
accounting for all. Nearly twenty years he 
has served of his life sentence, and everyone 
about him soon knows it; some of them he 
has led to the Master. He has told the story 
of his redemption to thousands, from plat- 
form and pulpit, being in demand for revival 
work; rarely has he failed to see men won to 
Jesus by his recital. 

Roberts now lives in a fine house on one 
of the boulevards of the city where he started 
his new life. He owns another and has a 
line of mortgages and a bank account, suffi- 
cient to keep him in his declining years, though 
he has given away as much more to help 
others like he once was. He still holds his 
position, but with assistants to make it easy, 
and there is no more respected man in the 



148 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

city to-day than the ex-safe-blower. The po- 
lice know he is "on the square" and have a 
good word for him. The man who ordered 
him out of town is dead, but for years he was 
accustomed to drop in on Eoberts occasion- 
ally, at his office, not to ascertain whether 
he was keeping straight, but to keep alive 
his faith in humanity and to remind himself 
that the Divine could do more than the strong 
arm of the law for a fallen man. "He is surely 
a Christian, and he has got the goods on 
him," was his rather slangy way of express- 
ing his confidence in Eoberts. 

The crown of life earned through faithful- 
ness rests upon him who once was a menace 
to society, his misspent and distorted life has 
become a thing of beauty and his presence a 
benediction to all with whom he comes in 
contact. 

As far as the west is removed from the east, 

He banished my sins, both the greatest and least. 



CHAPTER XV 

Sunny Jim 

Early Christian era painters depicted 
Deity or a saint with an aureole. No one who 
knows Sunny Jim will have the slightest 
doubt that they were warranted in placing 
a halo about the head of a Peter or a Paul, 
nor wonder how the practice was conceived by 
the artist. 

Sunny Jim — that was before he received 
this name — was a bartender, a waiter, a man 
of all work, a dishwasher, in turn, until he 
could not hold even the humblest place in a 
cheap restaurant. Undone, he was a wretched 
semblance of humanity, ragged and dirty, 
always drunk or dry, homeless, friendless, 
penniless, forsaken. When a few hours' pay 
sufficed to get him drunk and leave enough 
over to buy a cot in a lodging house, the night 
clerk had another "drunk" on his hands. 
There may have been an aura about him, but 
not the kind a painter would care to depict 
upon the canvas. 

He was born of German parents when many 
respectable, well-to-do families still were liv- 
ing within the shadow of the Bowery, though 

149 



150 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

that street was noted for its dives. He was 
not content to drink like most Germans; that 
was too slow. Early in life he drank heavily, 
though he was warned that his conduct would 
lead him to the state of the men in a lodging 
house upon which the family could look from 
their rear windows. He laughed at this pos- 
sibility. But he spent many nights in that 
very lodging house later on. 

He became bartender for another German 
of enterprising ideas, who sent him on Sun- 
day mornings to a German church in the 
neighborhood of the saloon, to win patronage 
from the members of the congregation. 
Cigars and jovial greetings were the bait 
used; he says this advertising cost little and 
brought big returns to the saloon, which 
opened when church was over. The propri- 
etor had been to another church with like 
results. 

But, being a good customer of the bar be- 
hind which he served, in time he was dis- 
charged as a no good." He never used religion 
as a cloak thereafter, but served many saloons 
behind the bar, until there came a time when 
no one would employ him in that line, because 
of his drunkenness. Then he became a waiter 
and followed this line until his condition pre- 
vented him from securing more than a few 



SUNNY JIM 151 

hours' work at the dinner rush — if he was 
sober enough. 

With one large restaurant corporation, for 
which he worked on and off — generally off 
in his later days — he might have become a 
branch manager, for he had the natural ability. 
He chose to continue his drinking ways and 
dropped from a waiter to omnibus — man of 
all work — and finally to dishwasher, the most 
menial work in that line, and even then they 
had to let him go many times for incapacity to 
do this work. 

This did not come to him all in a year, but 
so gradually that he scarcely noticed the gra- 
dations down to the place where he knew 
nothing but to live for the day, with misery 
sure to end it. 

During this period he became estranged 
from his family, and for ten years they sought 
him in vain. Though separated by but a few 
miles, he was lost to his relatives. When 
there was a death in the family his sisters 
searched the city without result. Prisons, 
hospitals, and every other place where a "lost" 
man might be, were visited. When he was not 
found, and the morgue gave no clue, it was 
feared that he had enlisted for the Spanish- 
American war and had been killed. The 
departmental records did not bear his name, 



152 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

and they wondered if he had enlisted under 
an assumed name. 

It was midwinter when he came where the 
gospel message was given out. He had been 
in the bread line and heard that a supper was 
to be given at a mission he had never known 
of before, and he went, because he was hungry 
for the sandwich and coffee to be served. He 
was so filthy that he feared he would not be 
admitted, but no questions are asked at that 
mission, and no conditions attached to the 
coming, for it is almost the only place where 
the drunkard and thief are more welcome than 
the sober man and the upright, and where the 
highways and hedges are searched, if need be, 
that there may be no vacant seats at the feast. 

Siestas after the supper are not looked upon 
with favor in this place. Though the hot 
coffee and warm room woo slumber to the 
tired men, it is customary to keep them awake 
that the message and testimonies be not lost. 
Sunny Jim was prodded several times; this 
resulted in his hearing about every word ut- 
tered. 

The fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah was read: 
"Wherefore do ye spend money for that which 
is not bread? and your labor for that which 
satisfieth not?" 

"That fits me," said one hearer. "That is 



SUNNY JIM 153 

what I have done all my life; it is time I 
made a change." 

With a large crowd of men he knelt and 
obtained forgiveness. Of all the number he 
was the only one to return, though he was 
the most hopeless-looking case of all. A bed 
ticket and a meal ticket supplied immediate 
needs. He never needed help after that first 
night. A few hours' work the next day, se- 
cured after he told a former employer what 
he had done, supplied his wants for that day 
and the next, and then he secured a steady 
job. 

In recounting the experiences of the first 
few days he said that his first temptation 
came when he was paid off for the first day. 
With not a cent in his pockets he had no temp- 
tation to buy a drink, but the minute there 
was a half dollar there the suggestion came 
to "take one." But a voice within told him 
that unless he wanted to be dependent upon 
others he had better spend the money differ- 
ently. He listened to the good promptings of 
the Spirit and paid for two nights' lodging, 
got a clean shirt from the laundry, and bought 
a paper of tobacco. This took all his money, 
and, broke, his temptation was gone. 

To those who have never had the struggle 
with sin in its virulent forms all this will 



154 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

seem petty; but to Sunny Jim it was the be- 
ginning of character building, and if you had 
heard his testimony that first night it would 
have been very apparent that he had gained 
a victory, and that he had learned a vital truth 
— that while he might not be free from temp- 
tation, yet there was a way to circumvent 
the adversary. 

In two or three days soap and water had 
made him shine; he was clean, his clothing 
had been made presentable, and he stood forth 
a transformed man within and without. In 
another week his happy testimony won him 
the name "Sunny Jim," and it fitted his dis- 
position so well that it has clung to him since. 

One of the first things he did was to hunt 
up his sisters and tell them of the change 
which had come into his life. They knew 
something had happened, for he had not come 
to them asking for money — declined it, in 
fact ; they were rejoiced that their prayers had 
been answered and received him joyfully. 

Another brother was missing from the 
home. Sunny Jim began to pray on every 
occasion that he might find that brother and 
importuned everyone he met to do the same. 
One night he was greeting the men entering 
the mission, one after another, as "my brother/' 
when he turned and found himself face to face 



SUNNY JIM 155 

with his own brother. There was great re- 
joicing that night, and ere long he had the 
great joy of leading his loved one to Jesus, 
and this was followed by a happy reunion of 
all of the family. 

To crown his blessings God has given him a 
life partner, whom he met while trying to 
help others. 

Sunny Jim developed into a constant 
worker for his Master. Wherever he may 
be, in street car, restaurant, or elsewhere, he 
bears witness to everybody of the power of 
salvation. He is thoroughly practical and 
believes in interpreting the gospel message in 
terms of food and lodging and clothing, 
though making it clear that it is all given be- 
cause his Master loved him well enough to 
save him. He who as bartender broke down 
character, is now an upbuilder; dozens of his 
old associates have followed in his footsteps 
through his testimony and life. 

If you should see him stand in the presence 
of a crowd of sinners, telling of the love of 
Jesus which lifted him from the depths and 
made a new creature out of him, while im- 
pressed with his earnestness, you would be 
startled by his glowing countenance, for he 
fairly seems to shine on his Mount of Trans- 
figuration as he talks. "Sunny Jim" is only 



156 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

a nickname, but one seems to see the Sun of 
Kighteousness shine forth in him. 

If you give your heart to Jesus, 

You will shine as the sun, 

You will shine as the sun, 

You will shine as the sun; 
If you give your heart to Jesus, 

You will shine as the sun, 
As you walk the golden streets on high. 



CHAPTEE XVI 

Sunshine 

Sunshine had lived a rough life. It was 
not environment with him, but choice that 
led him into the darkened paths. He suffered 
for it far beyond what the average man is 
called upon to endure, and, though he strove 
to get away from evil conditions and influ- 
ences in his life times without number, yet 
always he was unequal to the struggle. He 
had no Helper in his straits and his sin 
persisted. 

Yet he had not been born amid evil sur- 
roundings. His home was that of the Ameri- 
can gentleman, his parents were church folk, 
and Sunshine was not left ignorant of the 
Bible and its purpose. In his early life he 
attended one of the aristocratic churches of 
the city, then not so exclusive as now in its 
congregation. This was after the family 
moved in from the country, though what then 
was called country is scarcely out of the city 
to-day. 

It might be difficult to point to the one thing 
which started Sunshine on the downward 
path, for sin has insidious ways of entering 

157 



158 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

into the life and the retrospect is not always 
illuminating in the far reaches. For more 
than thirty years, however, there had been 
little in the life which was commendable. 

Drink, of course, was there; that was the 
solvent by means of which almost all the 
other sins were carried into the life current, 
until the stream was polluted. 

One of the first effects of the drinking was to 
drive Sunshine from home. He was not called 
Sunshine then — that is a product of his later 
life. He traveled with a fast lot of youths 
who needed money to keep up the pace, and 
there were many pawnshops handy. It was 
easy to dispose of property, and easier still 
to appropriate that which belonged to another. 
The law calls that stealing, but they did not; 
they were simply taking from the world that 
living which they claimed as a right. That God 
had prescribed the manner of attaining the live- 
lihood by the sweat of the brow did not enter 
into their ethics. If they had any ethics it 
might be summed up in the words, familiar 
now: "We need the money." 

The law has an eye for such, and one day 
the law stepped in and in the course of time 
one of the private rooms in a State hotel, 
located on the banks of a beautiful river, had 
a new occupant. There was no sunshine there. 



SUNSHINE 159 

It does not take many lessons of this kind 
to compel a man to stop and think. Alas! 
that they seldom follow the promptings of 
their better judgment and turn away from evil. 
Sunshine heeded in part, for he resolved that 
the things which brought him into contact with 
the law were to be shunned; he told himself 
that he did not like State board, and he did 
not propose to be a free boarder again. Had 
some earnest Christian touched the life at 
that juncture, Sunshine might have been 
saved from all of his sins. 

When he found that he could not break 
with the old crowd, and could not mend his 
ways with their help, rather than again be- 
come involved in their work he went into a 
little office before which were an American 
flag, a pacing soldier, and a placard telling 
of the need of Uncle Sam for men to fight. 
In those days there was still some fighting 
going on in the land; there were marauding 
Indian bands in the Bad Lands and down 
along the Mexican border, and occasionally 
the Utes of Colorado broke from their reser- 
vation and ravaged a section. Sunshine did 
not think of the Indian fighting, else he might 
have chosen the navy, where no sort of war 
cloud was in sight. 

The atmosphere of the barracks at an army 



160 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

post is not likely to aid in a man's reforma- 
tion, at least it was not so in those days. 
Now, with the branch Young Men's Christian 
Association influences, there is a chance. 
There was no reformation for Sunshine in 
the army. In Rome he did as the Romans 
did, which, translated, means that when his 
comrades filled up at the fringe of saloons 
surrounding the post, Sunshine was likely to 
be in the middle of the festivities. There was 
the guardhouse, of course, and extra duties 
imposed for the infringement of the rules 
when one stayed beyond leave, but one can 
mark time or march and shoulder a musket 
pretty well, though all the world seems to 
be revolving in several directions at the same 
instant. 

All posts are pretty much alike in their 
evil allurements. One or two, far from a 
settlement, are better in this respect, but most 
of them are at or near a large city, and 
soldiers are welcome at all the dives after 
pay day. Still, with all his failings, Sunshine 
was an average soldier, and his irrepressible 
wit under adverse conditions made him a 
favorite. 

There was that excursion into the Bad 
Lands of Dakota in which he participated, 
which also helped cover a multitude of 



SUNSHINE 161 

transgressions. He was in the command 
which swept over the plains and into the lava 
beds when the Modoc massacre wiped out the 
little band of General Logan, and he was pres- 
ent at the capture of Sitting Bull. Sunshine 
showed that he had the right stuff in him in 
those days of fighting; that counts for much 
with the officers. 

When the term of enlistment was over he 
came back to the old haunts. A new leader 
of the old gang had appeared upon the scene, 
and he had grouped about him a band of the 
toughest men to be found outside of a prison. 
Sunshine traveled with the gang on his old 
reputation. He did not participate, however, 
in their raids. Almost always he had a guilty 
knowledge of their crimes; he shielded them 
when he had the chance. 

The gang was one whose name inspired 
terror among the police of the city. The 
leader since has been sent to a penitentiary 
and the gang scattered, but in those days it 
stopped at nothing. One of its members 
boasted that up to a few months ago no man 
who looked as though he had money or other 
valuables could pass through certain streets 
without being stopped by one of the gang. 
Holdups, burglaries, shootings, and cuttings, 
and various other evil deeds were perpetrated. 



162 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

When the gang was out no one was safe, not 
even the policeman on the beat. 

Although Sunshine did not engage actively 
in the crooked work of the gang, he was with 
them on every drinking bout. The habit had 
grown upon him until it completely mastered 
him. The grade of the work he was able to 
do steadily dropped. 

Then came a period to which he does not 
often refer; when reason gave way under the 
persistent abuse to which he submitted his 
physical being. His vitality and mentality 
sapped by drink and its train, the doctors 
thought him hopeless. In the gospel days 
probably he would have been another dweller 
among the tombs. But God restored him and 
for a time he was careful. Then gradually 
he lost control of himself, and his habits were 
such that the only place he could hold was 
at cleaning windows ; at last he lost even that. 
He dwelt in the saloons, foraged where he 
could, and took in all the free suppers at the 
missions. A picture taken one night of a sup- 
per crowd contains a good view of Sunshine, 
though neither his appearance nor condition 
suggested this name at that time. 

One Sunday afternoon he heard the story 
of the raising of Lazarus, and some of the 
utterances of the leader brought recollections 



SUNSHINE 163 

of other days. When it came to the passage, 
"They took away the stone," he said to him- 
self, "I'm going to let Him take away the 
stone from my life." 

That day a Lazarus came forth from the 
tomb. 

It was not long before he gained the so- 
briquet "Sunshine." It seemed to fit the old 
man, now nearing sixty. His white hair and 
fair complexion, aided by a tendency to bald- 
ness, made his countenance fairly shine as 
he spoke. His sunny disposition added to the 
simile, and Sunshine he was named. No like- 
ness is there now to the man pictured on that 
supper night. Those who remembered the 
forlorn individual who had been present 
nearly every Saturday night during the win- 
ter could hardly believe that he and Sunshine 
were identical. No longer a denizen of the 
underworld, he claimed a place in the upper 
kingdom. 

There were many stumblings, many mis- 
takes and wanderings, but having once en- 
joyed the sunshine of His love he could not 
do without it, and he invariably returned. 
After a time he landed firmly on the Rock, 
and he knoweth its foundation is sure. 



CHAPTER XVII 
Her New Husband 

Long-suffering womankind does not re- 
ceive its meed of praise from men always, nor 
is it frequent that the husband will admit 
that he is responsible for the ills which have 
come upon his home, though he be drunkard 
or worse. The life of evil, most of the time, 
seeks to find in others the cause of the woes 
which come into it. 

Johnson, however, had not the least doubt 
that he was blamable for the hardships his 
wife had to endure, and for the fact that his 
children had scarcely one to call father, for 
he was away from home except what time 
was required to eat and sleep, and not always 
for that. 

Perhaps it was only natural that he should 
pray that God should give his wife a new hus- 
band and his children a new father. That 
was all he asked when he came seeking sal- 
vation, but the God above saw that back of 
this were sin-sickness and heart-weariness and 
longing for real life, and gave all that was 
yearned for. 

Johnson had been a prosperous business 

164 



HER NEW HUSBAND 165 

man once. He had married a sweet Christian 
woman and they had been blessed with sev- 
eral children. His home was happy and sup- 
plied with the good things of life until sin 
fastened its grip upon the home's head. He 
had learned to drink and play cards and 
other games of chance, at first as a means 
of diversion, then because it furnished the 
excitement which his nature craved more and 
more, and at last he could not remain away 
from the gaming tables, if he had a cent to 
wager or his credit was good with the pro- 
prietor of the place. 

This was not accomplished in a year, nor 
in several years. His business provided him 
with a substantial income, and when the 
drain of constant playing told, the bank ac- 
count covered it; and then he did not always 
lose. The hardest gamblers are those who 
make frequent and big winnings. He became 
known as one of the most confirmed poker- 
players in the lower part of his home city 
and as a man who would buck any "tiger" 
layout, for faro was still permitted, if not 
run too openly. Poker, the national game, 
was rife and rarely interfered with. 

One cannot neglect business and home with- 
out suffering for it. His business dropped 
off, the bank account dwindled, and then he 



166 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

had to settle some of his debts by giving his 
notes. By this time the home began to feel 
the pinch. Usually this is the first place hit, 
for, while gambling makes a spendthrift of 
the man who wins largely, it turns into a 
miser the man on the losing side, when he 
sees his ill luck persist until it seems as 
though the tide never would turn. Of course 
the player believes that the next hand or the 
next turn of the cards will bring the change 
of fortune. Alas ! too often there is no change, 
and the devotee of the god of Luck finds him- 
self broke, with no chance of mending his 
fortune or ways. 

With such a man the first place where he 
begins to save is in the home expenses. The 
wife has less for the household and for dress 
and little things for herself and the children. 
The more the gamesters demand as tribute, 
the less the family gets; for the infatuation 
is so complete, and the victim so sure that 
to-day, or to-morrow, or perhaps the day af- 
ter, he will make a big winning and be "on 
easy street" once more ; so it is important that 
when luck turns he have enough to play the 
game out. 

When Johnson went broke he found many 
willing to stake him for another try; he was 
able to borrow large sums from those who had 



HER NEW HUSBAND 167 

known him in prosperous days and did not 
know that he was about "all in" financially. 
These sums were but flea-bites to the demands 
upon him and the losses at cards. Soon he 
stared ruin in the face, and there were trans- 
actions of so grave a nature that he feared 
arrest — warrants indeed were issued. He 
fled to escape the consequences of his sins, 
for he knew that his sins had found him 
out. He did not abandon his wife and chil- 
dren, but had to leave them to subsist as best 
they might until he was settled in another 
city and able to send money home. The 
wife prayed and trusted. For many years 
she had not failed for a single day to ask God 
to save her husband; in the fufillment of time 
her faith was justified. 

As life in the Western city was wilder than 
the one he had left, it may be imagined that 
Johnson did not materially improve in his 
habits. He drank heavily at periods closely 
coincident with salary day and for a short 
time each month was a bright light in one or 
more of the gaming halls; but his money did 
not hold out long. 

God had willed that he should be under 
influences for good, and a Christian woman 
for whom he worked often advised him for 
his own good. Though no result was apparent 



168 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

from this, the seed had fallen where the soil 
was fertile, to spring up in due season. She 
talked to him much about his wife and chil- 
dren, and saw to it that he sent a portion of 
his wages regularly to them. 

One day she came to him and said: "John- 
son, you had better go home. I don't know 
why I am thus advising you, but I feel that 
you ought to go." 

It had been several years since he left 
his home city, and he felt that probably his 
troubles there had blown over. He also had 
been yearning for a sight of the home faces 
and, without knowing why, he started to see 
them. 

He did not go home until it was dark, for 
he was uncertain which way the land lay, 
and did not care to meet his old friends 
or a deputy sheriff until he knew what to 
expect. He was received with joy and the 
wife prayed again that the rest of her prayer 
might be answered. Neither knew that God 
was soon to reveal his wondrous power unto 
them. 

Not long after his return from the West, 
on a sultry Sunday afternoon, Johnson was 
walking on one of the main streets when he 
was handed a small card, which he found to 
be an invitation to a meeting in a famous old 



HER NEW HUSBAND 169 

church. He was in his shirtsleeves because 
of the heat and did not suppose he would be 
welcome at the meeting. He had been sit- 
ting at cards all night, the game lasting until 
after the noon hour, when he was broke, and 
he was "indigo blue," as he has expressed it. 
He did not want to go home and confess once 
more that he was broke, dreading the patient, 
sorrowful face of his wife. He loved her and 
willingly would have died for her if neces- 
sary; alas! he could not live for her, of his 
own power. 

As he looked over the card handed to him, 
life's failure was revealed to him. Yet as 
he went into the meeting he had no thought 
that the keynote of success was to be made 
manifest unto him. He did not expect any- 
thing from the meeting ; he wanted to sit down 
and think things over before going home. 

As he pondered over his condition snatches 
of songs as gentle influences stole into his 
heart, and then he heard a man speak, whose 
voice he recognized, and he put away his medi- 
tations to listen to his words, wondering, be- 
times, what that man could have to say in 
such a meeting. To his amazement the 
speaker announced that he had been saved 
from cards and whisky. Part of his story 
relating to the past was common knowledge 



170 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

to Johnson, for he had been concerned with 
some features of it. As he listened he could 
see that there was a change, a something dif- 
ferent which he could not define, though it 
was plain to see. 

"Can it be," he thought, "that there is 
something in this religion that I have not 
found out? Is it possible to change a gambler 
like me into a respectable man?" 

When the invitation was given, without a 
direct suggestion from anyone, Johnson arose 
from his seat in the last row and walked 
down the aisle, kneeling with others at the 
front seats. And then he prayed — thinking 
more of the effect on his home than upon 
himself — that God would send a new husband 
and father there to right things. 

There was a happy wife in the home that 
night, for Johnson had hurried away to tell 
her that her prayer had been answered at last. 
The rejoicing that had been going on in heaven 
over the repentant sinner found echo in the 
home, and with children about them father 
and mother knelt together for the first time 
and both lifted up their hearts to the throne 
in thanksgiving, and thus set up the family 
altar, whose fire has never been extinguished. 

Though that is a score of years ago, Johnson 
has never ceased telling the story of his re- 



HER NEW HUSBAND 171 

demption, which seems so wonderful to him 
yet that he speaks with an enthusiasm which 
is infectious. He has prospered until he has 
a fine manufacturing business, and owns a 
beautiful home and has everything else in 
keeping. He has seen many of his old 
gambling companions take the step he did 
that Sunday afternoon. 

"There's no game of chance about this," he 
tells them; "it's the only 'sure-thing' game 
in the world." 



CHAPTER XVIII 
A Workhouse Valet 

Kaleidoscopic had been the life of Fuller 
who from the highest-paid pulpit of an Eastern 
city dropped down the social scale until he 
was literally a valet to three Negroes, who 
with him occupied a cell in the workhouse, 
but who has been restored to the Christian 
pulpit. 

Life began fair with him. Nurtured in a 
home where every kindly influence was thrown 
around him, he graduated in the course of time 
from a well-known university with the degree 
Ph.D., then from a divinity school, and en- 
tered the ministry in a Pennsylvania town. 
He was successful from the first. His preach- 
ing had the stamp of earnestness, its logic was 
clear, and tangible results evidenced the seal 
of the Holy Spirit upon his ministry. In two 
years a larger field opened in a growing city. 
He was looked upon as a rising young preacher. 
Soon his fame spread to the chief city of the 
State and he was called to one of its best- 
paid pulpits. He took rank at once as one 
of the leading pulpit orators of the city. 

Fuller had married and two beautiful girls 

172 



A WORKHOUSE VALET 173 

came into the home. Then the death angel 
entered and the light went out of the family 
circle. He had become accustomed to take 
a glass of wine occasionally — indeed, had taken 
his first drink at the urging of a fair parish- 
ioner and found wine upon the tables of some 
of his congregation with whom he dined. In 
his grief, poignant and insatiable, he turned 
to the winecup for solace — rather to still and 
steel the racked nervous system. It grew to 
be a habit, with the chains of intemperance 
forged about him. 

One summer day, sitting in a resort hotel, 
he was overwhelmed with the realization that 
he had become a drunkard, was disgracing his 
cloth, and was unfit to enter his pulpit again. 
Worst of all, he could not see that there was 
any chance of escaping from his thraldom. 
He wrote at once to the officials of his church, 
resigning the charge, and to the governing 
board of his denomination, confessing his 
fault and asking to be permitted to withdraw 
from the ministry. He was his only accuser 
and the permission was given. 

Sin had robbed him of his sacred calling, 
had driven him from his Father's house, and, 
like another Jacob, was about to make him 
a wanderer. 

Drink drew him on. His intention was to 



174 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

turn to teaching for a livelihood. He did se- 
cure a school in a Western city, remained 
sober through the school year, and fancied 
he had conquered the demon within him. One 
day, however, as he stood on a corner waiting 
for a car, he turned about to see that he was 
before the entrance to a saloon, and was im- 
pelled to enter. The demon was still active. 
His school work was lost because of this spree 
and others which followed. Newspaper and 
magazine articles brought in a little money, 
but when the fires of rum are burning in a 
man's veins he has no time for painstaking 
work. If he be a genius, rum may glorify 
his work for a time ; whether he be or not, the 
end is certain. 

Fuller roamed the country as a tramp, 
mingling with the unemployed and criminal 
classes "on the road," weaving back and forth 
over the country. He lectured at times, but 
even though as a temperance lecturer he told 
the horrors of the liquor traffic, he spent the 
proceeds of his oratory drinking in some dive. 
He wound up "on the Bowery." 

Scarce a city but has its equivalent of the 
Bowery, but only the initiated appreciate the 
utter hopelessness of the phrase "on the 
Bowery." "The jumping off place of hu- 
manity," the "last end of man," the "mael- 



A WORKHOUSE VALET 175 

strom of sin/' it has been variously called, this 
hiding place of the vicious and home for the 
disheartened outcast. These do not tell all. 

The title of "Dr." had been forgotten by now. 
The consort of the hopeless and friendless, 
life was an unending round of "panhandling" 
for drinks, for food, and for lodging. Pan- 
handling is not as remunerative on the Bowery 
as it was once. There are too many pan- 
handlers for one thing; there are not so many 
"sports," with their free-handed ways, for an- 
other. The man who is "on the Bowery" must 
expect to spend many a night walking the 
streets, or on a park bench, or in the meager 
shelter of a truck, with newspapers for sheets 
and blankets; must expect many days of hun- 
ger, many days of drought. What an awful 
gulf between the fashionable pulpit and the 
back room of a Bowery saloon! 

Such of his clothing as was pawnable, or 
salable, had gone for drink; the coat he wore 
was minus one sleeve; underneath it was an 
undershirt whose description had best be left 
to the imagination; tattered trousers, gaping 
shoes — not mates, and one soleless — and a 
battered hat completed the make-up. One 
June night he was arrested in Chatham Square 
for fighting. Locked in the same cell with 
him was a Negro, the most repulsive he had 



176 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

ever seen. From one of the West Indian 
Islands, his face was scarred with the fetish 
marks of some barbarian religious rites, 
which imparted a hideous cast to the counte- 
nance. 

Both were given workhouse sentences. 
Handcuffed to his terrifying cellmate, Fuller 
was driven through the streets to the Island 
ferry. Business was good in the court that 
day, and the "Black Maria" was crowded, 
and the ill-assorted pair occupied an outside 
seat. Children ran alongside the prison van 
to jeer at the unusual spectacle of a white 
man chained to a Negro. His eye, from the 
evening fight, had turned black. God! that 
human lives should be so cheap that the rum 
traffic can barter in them thus! 

At the workhouse the two were assigned to 
a cell with two other Negroes. The "Dr." did 
not look as though he could do any manual 
labor worth while in the workhouse, and he 
was ordered to take care of the cell he occu- 
pied with the Negroes. He made their beds, 
and his own, swept the floor and mopped it, 
and performed the other chores. He was 
made, in the prison terms, "valet and bed- 
maker" to the Negroes. 

Two weeks after his release from the work- 
house he entered a mission, much to his own 



A WORKHOUSE VALET 177 

wonderment. He was tired and hoped to rest, 
unmolested by the police. What he heard 
set him to thinking. Men told of their own 
salvation, but he could not believe it was all 
true. His theological training either had not 
taught him that "the blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanseth from all sin/' or he had not grasped 
the sin of drinking. Why will not men see 
that intemperance is not a "failing," not a 
"weakness," but SIN? 

Reluctantly he went to the altar under the 
persuasion of the mission superintendent and 
for the first time in ten years felt that he did 
not need to take a drink. And, as it dawned 
upon him that he was free from the curse of 
drink, he marveled that he had not thought 
to seek this source of power before. 

The following Sunday afternoon came a 
test of his sincerity and of the depth of his 
professed conversion. As he sat with other 
converts in the mission, to his amazement 
three ministers entered who had been his 
classmates at the theological seminary. What 
should he do? He knew he would not be recog- 
nized if he sat still; he could escape a pos- 
sible meeting by leaving the place; his inner 
self told him to stand by his guns and trust 
the Lord. 

Trembling with suppressed emotion, at the 



178 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

proper time he arose and told in simple 
phrases the story of his downfall and the old, 
old story of redemption. Watchful men and 
women who had seen his agitation, and half 
guessed the reason, were praying that God 
would give him grace to arise; now they 
prayed that the Holy Spirit would touch his 
tongue. 

His story was brief, yet it disclosed the en- 
tire gamut of a sinful life, of a new birth, 
of new hopes, and, as it came in measured 
phrases, it thrilled the audience. His class- 
mates recognized, after the first sentence, the 
wreck of the theological student and preacher ; 
but they saw something more — the new life 
come to the repentant sinner — and after the 
service they pressed forward to encourage him 
and welcome him back into the fold. 

Four years later his church restored him 
to the ministry. He would not return save 
as a probationer, and served his year as such, 
and then was ordained as though he had never 
been in a pulpit. In a little time he was in- 
stalled as pastor of a metropolitan church, 
and with success has ministered unto the con- 
gregation. 

The interim had brought a complete res- 
toration of all his powers. In the first year he 
was invited to preach in Old John Street, 



A WORKHOUSE VALET 179 

"Mother Church of American Methodism," of 
which he was an attendant; he lectured and 
preached elsewhere, went out to tell the story 
of his conversion in behalf of the missions, and 
conducted a Bible class of redeemed drunk- 
ards and crooks, several of whom were in- 
spired to enter missionary work under his 
teaching. A little later a philanthropist 
placed him in charge of a charitable institu- 
tion which seeks to help unfortunate men 
until they can find work. Into this he put the 
experience gained in his ten years of wander- 
ing. 

Some time later he was invited to become 
the State head of an agency which is fighting 
the saloons and in this field finds his "down 
and out" experiences helpful. 

No trace remains of his fallen estate. The 
power which removed the appetite for alcohol 
made the change complete. One crowning joy 
remained for him. Invited to the city whence 
he had fled by a merchant prince whose name 
also is known everywhere as a Prince of the 
Kingdom, he was surprised to see a large 
delegation from his former church, whose 
pastorate he had resigned, and among the 
two thousand to whom he administered the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper on that day 
there were many of his former parishioners. 



180 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

He has since preached in the old church and 
was given a reception such as few pastors re- 
ceive. 

Yet the proudest moment in his life — the 
sacredest — is that when, kneeling in the mis- 
sion with other forlorn men, he learned the 
meaning of the old hymn: 

Amazing grace! 'Tis heaven below 

To feel the blood applied — 
And Jesus, only Jesus, know, 

My Jesus, crucified. 



CHAPTER XIX 

Rebel, Then Regular 

"Is this one of the regulars?" 

The questioner, superintendent of a rescue 
mission, placed his hand upon a ragged and 
bleary sleeper in a rear seat. He had not rec- 
ognized the man and the janitor declared him 
to be a newcomer. The man had been awak- 
ened by the incident and the meeting was about 
to start. Having heard the question, he won- 
dered what a "regular" might be. At any 
rate, he thought, there is nothing regular 
about me; I must be a rebel. 

It was a long path which led this man off 
from Sunday school and the kindly influences 
of a Christian home. Not so far measured by 
feet and inches, for the old church was less 
than a mile away; but the life trail had been 
tortuous. 

His parents had been members of Meth- 
odism's mother church on the continent. 
Mother's boy had been taught to pray when 
he went to bed and he had memories, even 
more remote, of being rocked to sleep to the 
hymn, "O happy day, that fixed my choice." 
Many times mother's voice had been heard in 

181 



182 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

prayer that God would save her darling boy; 
how could heaven refuse the petition of faith? 
Yet for many long years hope died out for the 
boy, grown into manhood, and none of his 
loved ones believed that mother's prayer ever 
would be answered. 

Mother took the boy to Sunday school with 
his penny for the plate, while she attended 
the class meeting. Perhaps she dreamed a 
little of the day when her boy would grow up 
and in God's providence be made leader of 
that class. Well, mother's dreams sometimes 
come true. The boy later was leader of the 
class for a number of years, and it should be 
known that in this church the class meeting 
is not thought old-fashioned, and is attended 
usually by as many as are able to crowd into 
the room. 

Mother did not dream of the sin and sorrow 
and suffering which were in store before that 
vision should be fulfilled; she was spared the 
agony of soul that such foreknowledge would 
have brought to her. She died before Sin 
entered. Her boy, not yet on the threshold of 
manhood, without the loving restraint and 
care of the mother, was left to his own devices 
by the father, who did not linger long after 
mother went, and grew fond of the theater, 
the dance, the city picnic or outing, and other 



REBEL, THEN REGULAR 183 

worldly attractions. School became irksome 
and he went to work for a banking house. 
In eight years he had gained the confidence of 
his employers and had a splendid position, but 
he had become infatuated with the race track 
also. Violating every trust reposed in him, 
he robbed his employers to play the races, 
pawned everything he could lay his hands 
upon for the same purpose, and lived only for 
the excitement of gambling. 

At the race track he learned to drink — to 
look upon the ability to drink a certain 
amount of whisky as an evidence of manli- 
ness. It became a fixed habit. His excesses 
caused his friends alarm, but expostulation 
was unavailing. When he lost his job they 
helped him get another, and then several 
others. He was aided in every other way pos- 
sible, but at last the family was forced to 
abandon him with the remark, "He is no 
good." He was now in rebellion against his 
family, the Sunday school, and the whole 
world. 

One night, when he was drinking in a gilded 
cafe, the bartender saw that rum had its hold 
upon young Miller and cautioned him: "If 
you stick to that stuff, young man, you will 
come to rags ; better take my advice and quit 
while you can." 



184 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

Believe it, dear reader, that all agents of the 
devil in the sale of liquid damnation are not 
soulless. Down in their hearts, beyond all 
peradventure, many, many of them are sorry 
to see a young man become a drunkard. They 
may conceal this for business reasons, but 
it is there. Men who frequent the saloons 
often hear the bartender advise customers to 
"go slow" and others to quit absolutely; have 
seen them refuse to sell, telling the youth 
they would not be a party to his inevitable 
downfall. 

Miller laughed at his adviser, just as thou- 
sands of young and "wise" men do to-day. He 
never forgot it, however. 

From that time the downward pace was 
more rapid, and at the end of ten years of 
drinking the bottom was reached. Home was 
broken up long before, and money and posi- 
tion gone, and Miller became a wanderer and 
outcast. Of this period of his life he says : 

"Often I wondered why I was born to such 
a hell upon earth; wondered why God did 
not remove me. I was dead in all but the 
physical and longed for release from existence. 
Slinking about in unfrequented parts of the 
parks or water front, I avoided those who 
had once been my friends. By day I wished 
it were night to draw a mantle about me; by 



REBEL, THEN REGULAR 185 

night I wished for the light to drive away 
the fears which were upon me. Hungry, tired, 
homeless, and hopeless, I could see no chance 
of ever getting away from that kind of a life. 
Remorse and anguish filled me when my senses 
were not steeped in alcohol. 

"Sometimes I wandered into a mission to 
sleep, where a policeman would not drive me 
out. I heard men tell of salvation, but it 
made little impression. I wanted to be sober, 
but I could not imagine anyone being happy 
in the Christian life, and I was not ready to 
give up the world, not knowing that in the 
former true happiness and peace is to be found, 
and there alone. 

"I became more hardened and reckless and 
did not hesitate at anything to get money to 
buy whisky. If the police had caught me I 
might have been sent away for a long term 
of years, but the only charge I ever had to 
answer was drunkenness, thank God. 

"One night I was discharged for drunken- 
ness and dishonesty — a polite way of saying 
that I was a thief. That night I spent in a 
saloon playing cards, and at daybreak I was 
stone broke. I commenced to drown my sor- 
row in whisky and succeeded so well that I 
slept off two drunks that Sunday. I do not 
remember anything from the middle of the 



186 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

afternoon until I was awakened in the mis- 
sion. I do not know where I had been in the 
meantime, but that night I ended my rebel- 
lion and became a 'regular.' " 

When Miller started up, as he was awak- 
ened, his forlorn appearance moved the mis- 
sionary; his eyes sought the man again and 
again during the evening. Strangely the waif 
did not go to sleep again. God had a vision 
prepared for him, and, if necessary, legions 
of angels would have been sent to prop open 
the eyelids lest he fail to see it. 

There were songs, and many of them 
brought reminders of the old church, and then 
there were stories of salvation — fresh chapters 
of the gospel story, told by the subjects of 
miraculous deliverance. It seemed to sober 
up Miller, for over and over again he heard 
his own life story. Men who had been in his 
present condition told how they had been 
saved, were happy and prosperous as Chris- 
tians, and said that Jesus was ready to do 
the same thing for any man. The vision had 
appeared — a vision in which Jesus and mother 
were seen pleading for the boy, and at last he 
yielded. 

At the close of the meeting the missionary 
looked straight at Miller as he said that it was 
on a Sunday evening that he had been born 



REBEL, THEN REGULAR 187 

again, and he wondered if anyone in the room 
wished for the same thing — to live a Chris- 
tian life and start for heaven that Sabbath 
night. He invited such to stand up. 

Miller sprang up, eager to end his old life. 
With ten others he went forward, but when 
he knelt he knew not what to say or do. 
He was dazed by the debauch and by the reve- 
lations of the stories and the hope which had 
come to him, and prayer would not form. 
Prompted by the missionary, he prayed, "God 
be merciful to a sinner, for Jesus' sake," and 
over him came the consciousness that his pe- 
tition had been heard at the Throne, and in 
the after testimonies said that he believed 
he had been saved. 

The fact that everyone wanted to greet and 
congratulate him on his salvation was another 
revelation to the man who scarcely had re- 
ceived a kind word in years. A dear woman 
won him by a gentleness that brought mem- 
ories of mother, and he got a foretaste of the 
joy of salvation. 

"If this is Christianity, why didn't I know 
it before?" he said to himself. "Why didn't 
some one tell me about it?" 

The next morning he awoke without crav- 
ing a drink of whisky. It was so strange a sen- 
sation that he said to himself that he really 



188 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

must be saved. He had been planning to 
leave for the West to hide himself from his 
relatives; now he wanted to go and tell them 
what had happened. 

He was not yet "cleansed from all un- 
righteousness," and in the interval of a year 
or two had several battles with the adversary, 
being worsted through drink; but he could 
not keep away from his Saviour. God had 
set his seal upon him and one day he fell in 
love with Jesus. Since then the devil has 
lost dominion over the dear brother, whose 
life is a benediction to all so fortunate as to 
know him. 

Eight weeks after his first experience at 
the mission Miller obtained employment with 
a banking house, whose manager stood by him 
in the days of testing. He became the confi- 
dential bookkeeper and trusted employee in 
the course of time, and for many years has 
prospered. 

He united very soon with the Methodist 
church he had attended as a boy and became 
one of its officers. The happiest days of his 
boyhood were spent in the old church; now 
he is living them all over again, to his great 
joy. His mother must have been a gentle 
woman, for a sweeter type of Christian 
than Miller is seldom met. His humility and 



REBEL, THEN REGULAR 189 

his love — especially for a fallen brother — are 
like those of the Master whom he loves. 

He has led many precious souls back to the 
Saviour and, though years have passed since 
he entered the mission, he is a regular attend- 
ant, always praising God a for saving him 
from whisky, tobacco, and everything else 
that is wicked and bad." The seed sown in 
his life has brought forth more than a hun- 
dredfold and the harvest is not yet ended. 



CHAPTER XX 

Arrows and Stripes 

He came for the cup of coffee and sand- 
wich — and got them — and not for the spiritual 
refreshment — though he also got that. He 
had been sleeping in the parks, from choice, 
that he might have more money to spend in 
the saloon. He was working, but the bar- 
tender got all his wages; indeed, his chief 
reason for working was that he might satiate 
his thirst, for he was dry always. Another 
reason was that as a furniture mover he might 
be able to get into people's houses without 
breaking in doors or windows. 

Henry had been a thief by profession — had 
deliberately chosen it in preference to the hon- 
est trade of a bookbinder, at which his father 
bound him as an apprentice. He came from 
the shadow of Saint Paul's, London, his home 
being toward the Whitechapel district, and 
he chose the leadings of the latter rather 
than the training of parents who were true 
worshipers. All about him in the home were 
influences which ought to have saved him from 
the awful life into which he plunged head- 
long because he thought it was easy. How 

190 



ARROWS AND STRIPES 191 

many think a life of sin is easy, because the 
beginning generally is, and awake one day to 
a realization of its slavery and the fact that 
they have had to work hard for the Evil One. 

The schools claimed him until he was old 
enough to go to work under the English law; 
then his father took him to the bindery and 
apprenticed him to learn the trade of a jour- 
neyman binder. He was bright and quick, 
learned rapidly, and was a favorite with his 
employers and fellow workmen. He might 
have become a master binder in time, for the 
father was able to set him up well in business 
had he so desired. 

Before he had finished his apprenticeship 
he fell among bad companions and into evil 
ways. As he began to get a little pocket 
money over the sum he paid into the family 
treasury for board, he felt that he must put 
in his evenings away from home. Any place 
away from father and mother is bad for a 
youth, but when that place is a den where 
thieves congregate, it becomes a true portal 
of hell for him. 

Hearing his associates boast of the easy 
way in which they made money, he marveled. 
They told him that they could go out any night 
and make a good haul, and they showed him 
from time to time the "roll" of easy money 



192 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

thus acquired. They told him, too, that he 
was a fool to work, when it was so easy to 
live without working. So he joined them. 
Burglaries, holdups— garroting and knocking 
men down for their valuables — and other 
crimes were committed; he still held his ap- 
prenticeship, but that was only for a blind 
and that the parents might not learn of his 
other "business." 

Often he came home late and was wept and 
prayed over by the mother, who saw that he 
had changed for the worse and who knew that 
he was drinking and frequenting evil resorts. 
One night the police caught him redhanded 
and locked him up. Henry sent word home 
and his mother came to see him in his cell. 
She wept and prayed for her boy to no avail. 
When she offered to get him a good lawyer 
and spend money to get him free from the 
charge, Henry spurned her offer; she might 
pray for him, but he did not want her money 
and did not want her lawyer. He told her he 
had gotten into the scrape himself and would 
get out of it himself. 

He actually thought he would be able to 
talk himself out of court when the trial came. 
He was the most surprised man in the court 
room when the judge, rejecting his defense 
altogether, sentenced him to prison. In a few 



ARROWS AND STRIPES 193 

days he occupied a little room all by himself 
in a State institution, his cot a plank with 
the pillow nailed fast to it and no softer than 
the plank. His clothing bore upon it the 
"Broad Arrow," famous as the English prison 
trademark. 

When he was released he went home. His 
mother pleaded with him to break away from 
his evil associations and be warned by the 
lesson he had received, advising him to go 
back and finish his trade. Henry told her 
that only fools worked and he did not propose 
to be a fool. He went back to his evil life 
instead of to the bindery. 

This was kept up for a number of years 
until he had become so disreputable that the 
family felt the disgrace and the odium cast 
upon them. A family consultation was held, 
when the ultimatum was delivered that Henry 
must go away from home. 

"We will give you money to pay your pas- 
sage to America and enough to last you there 
until you get a start," they told him. "You 
have relatives there who will help you." 

He bade his mother good-by and sailed with 
her blessing and advice to change his mode 
of living. He cared little for either. When 
he landed in America, a stranger in a city al- 
most as large as the one he left, the only 



194 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

guide posts he knew were the beer signs, and 
he followed them. They led him into Hell's 
Kitchen. There he met the same kind of com- 
panions he had left across the sea, and they 
told him there was plenty of "easy graft" in 
the city. 

He lived with a relative for a time, until 
failure to get work or pay board brought the 
suggestion that he hustle for a job. He got 
mad and quit the house and never lived with 
the relatives after that. Though he flourished 
on crime for a time, in the end the police got 
him in the act and a trip "up the river" fol- 
lowed. He returned after serving his "bit" 
and continued his lawlessness and again and 
again was sent away for a rest at the State's 
expense. In this way he earned his "stripes." 

Then some one told him how to evade the 
police. This was to be accomplished by se- 
curing a job as a furniture-mover. It sounded 
like real work, but he was tired of the board 
served at the prison, and he found a place 
with an owner of vans. His companions were 
men who had as unsavory reputations as him- 
self, and when not moving some one the chief 
diversion was "rushing the can," slang for 
sending a tin pail to the saloon for beer. 

When several of them were sent out with a 
van to move a household, opportunities for 



ARROWS AND STRIPES 195 

thievery came often. The men "moved" many 
things which were never again seen by the 
owners; they were enabled to get the lay of 
houses where there were many valuables, and 
got a share of the loot secured by others, if 
the "job" was not undertaken by the van's 
gang. 

Every cent gained in this way, whether as 
wages or "graft," went to the saloon. Often, 
he says, he would not spend even fifteen cents 
for lodging, for fear that he would not be able 
to buy a drink in the morning. He was in 
blue shirt, jumper, and overalls, with a winter 
cap, when he came to the mission to get a sand- 
wich and coffee. He heard the superintend- 
ent say that he had been a thief and highway- 
man and a drunkard before he was converted. 
He heard other men tell tales of broken and 
misspent lives, made entirely over through 
salvation. 

Sin had palled on Henry. Long before he 
was willing to confess that he did not know 
quite so much as he thought he did when he 
started the evil life. Prison had broken his 
nerve also, and he wanted no more of it. He 
was ready for the message, and when the in- 
vitation was given he was ready for that, and 
went forward. 

He went back to the furniture van next day 



196 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

and speedily forgot that he was going to live 
differently. Five times he was led back to 
the mission, however, and one night came to 
the realization that he must cut loose from 
his job, so long associated with wrongdoing. 
Once more he confessed his sins and declared 
openly his purpose to leave everything be- 
longing to the past. Surprisingly soon he had 
another job in a factory, which he still holds. 

The old mother, left on the other side of the 
ocean, had not heard from her erring son since 
the day she bade him good-by and gave him 
her blessing as he was about to sail. He 
always was "too busy" to write, even when 
behind prison bars. The mother had heard 
of the boy in a roundabout manner, from the 
relatives, but the letters were not calculated 
to cheer her heart. 

One thing which impressed him at the mis- 
sion had been the query on the wall, "How 
Long Since You Wrote to Mother?" It had 
been more than ten years and he made up 
his mind to write. He called on the relative 
to learn the London address, which had been 
changed. Before he could ask he was startled 
with the news that he never could write her 
again ; that she had passed to her reward, still 
praying for her boy. 

Years have passed since Henry turned from 



ARROWS AND STRIPES 197 

his sinful ways. He has found that it pays 
to live right. He has a home of his own, is 
prosperous, with a bank account, and has 
found that the path he once thought too nar- 
row for him to travel is broad enough now, 
since he walks straight, not crooked. He is 
constantly telling other men how, though he 
once wore the "Broad Arrow" in England 
and the stripes on this continent, his distin- 
guishing badge now is a white cross on a red 
shield; that instead of helping himself to 
other men's possessions he is able to help the 
needy in conformity with Paul's admonition: 
"Let him that stole steal no more; but rather 
let him labor, working with his hands the 
thing that is good, that he may have whereof 
to give to him that hath need." 

In the early days of his Christian life it was 
a problem with him whether he would be able 
to lead the pure life, until one of the leaders 
repeated an admonition of the late Mr. Had- 
ley to young converts : 

"If you are saved, tell it. Tell it as often 
as you can get anyone to listen to you. After 
awhile maybe you will believe it yourself." 

Henry saw that the speaker meant that 
reiteration would bring to him the witness to 
a full grasp of salvation; he began testifying 
everywhere, and found it to be as recom- 



198 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

mended. He has grown into a knowledge of 
his redemption that no man can take from 
him, for, as he told the story, it dawned upon 
him by degrees that the words he was say- 
ing were true; that he no longer wanted to 
drink and steal. Then it became a joy to 
bear witness on a street corner, in a mission 
or a church — anywhere he could get the 
chance. They call him an evangelist now, 
because of his earnestness and constant work, 
and his old companions marvel at the trans- 
formation of the furniture-mover. 

Is it not wonderful, strange and so wonderful, 

Jesus so gracious should be? 
Yes, it is wonderful, marvelous, wonderful, 

That he should save even me. 



CHAPTER XXI 
A Matter of Politics 

"My good man, pray ; if you don't know any 
other prayer, pray the prayer of the publican. 

"I'm no Kepublican, I'm a Democrat." 

This was Ben's beginning as an evangelist. 
Unpromising, he seemed, from every point of 
view, on that night when he came. He was 
so ignorant of the Bible that he did not know 
what publican meant ; he was drunk and ready 
for the hospital, and it seemed improbable 
that a permanent work of grace should be 
done in his heart. 

He had been born in the shadow of the mis- 
sion, on Cherry Hill. As a lad, in the early 
days of the mission hall, he had stoned the 
windows, pulled off clapboards and tried to 
break up the meetings. His father and mother 
were respectable tradespeople of the section, 
but they had no influence over Ben, who was 
brought up in the streets and was with a 
tough gang from babyhood. The Cherry Hill 
gang was the terror of the police ; some of the 
oldtimers shiver when they hear the name now. 

Ben would not go to school or do anything 
else the parents desired him to do, through 

199 



200 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

stubbornness, for he wanted to have his own 
way and do as he pleased. Little wonder that 
he grew up to be a thief and drunkard. The 
gang swarmed over on to adjoining sections 
of the city, Ben being among the migratory 
branch. He wanted to go where there was 
more money to be had. 

With such ideas and his drunkenness it 
was to be expected that he would be in con- 
stant conflict with the police. He was ar- 
rested many times in the twenty-two years 
he was a leader of a gang of crooks which had 
its meeting place at a corner dive on the Bow- 
ery. He was in jail many times during this 
period of his life. The police had him marked 
as a bad man; when they saw him coming 
they looked for trouble, and, if it came, 
clubbed him into submission. 

He was warned by the policemen many 
times to keep off the Bowery. Several precincts 
center about the corner where the gang met, 
which was precisely why they met there. It 
was so easy to slip over into another precinct 
when there was trouble. But the police of 
all four precincts united in the warning. So, 
when Ben wanted to go down the street — 
which he did about every time he attained a 
fighting load of whisky — you could see him 
in the middle of the street, careening along like 



A MATTER OF POLITICS 201 

a ship laboring in rough seas, howling his de- 
fiance to the police and everybody else. 

When, finally, it was either move or go 
to jail indefinitely, Ben left for other fields. 
From New York to San Francisco not a city 
of consequence but has some reason to remem- 
ber his presence there, though not all his 
victims knew the culprit. Always on the go, 
marauding and living off his stealings, he 
was an awful example of the perversion of 
man; he was a thoroughly "bad man." 

Even to a crook there comes a time when 
he longs for the old familiar scenes of youth. 
"Home, sweet home," with the memories of 
mother, and of companions and the happy 
time before sin entered into the heart, have 
a lure which draws the crook back. So it 
was with Ben. He longed for a sight of his 
native city and some of his old pals. He 
had no thought of changing his mode of life, 
but supposed most of the old policemen would 
have been shifted to other sections and the 
rest would have forgotten him. 

When he reached the city he sought his old 
companions and started in again on crooked 
work. Among other things he held up a man, 
took his roll of thirty dollars, and had what 
he called "a royal good time." When the 
money was all gone he was in bad shape, sick 



202 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

from the debauch. He met an old friend and 
stopped to talk over former days. To his 
surprise, the friend confessed to being broke 
and said he was going to a mission where they 
gave men sandwiches and coffee. It was in 
Ben's mind to boot the man for inviting him 
to go to a mission; what he wanted was 
whisky, not coffee; but he was too sick to 
carry out his thought. 

The friend started for his coffee, however, 
and though he never could tell why he did it, 
Ben followed along the familiar way, back 
to the place where he had played as a boy 
and stoned as a youth. He had never found 
out that they served coffee and sandwiches at 
the mission in those days. 

Ben was just sober enough to be sensible 
of what was going on around him. A man 
sent of God and whose name was John was 
on the platform that night. He was deaf, and 
on the pulpit was a small box with a cord 
leading to an earpiece. Ben thought it was 
a telephone when he saw it. 

The leader told what seemed to Ben a won- 
derful story. The man had been a gambler 
and a drunkard, which together robbed him of 
family and business and made him an outcast, 
without the least idea that there was a means 
of getting out of all his difficulties. He told the 



A MATTER OF POLITICS 203 

whole story of his excesses and how he had 
tried to beat everybody, had to leave the city 
until the troubles blew over, had come back 
and was dodging the police, when he drifted 
into a meeting place and heard that God 
would take away all the past and give him a 
new start. 

He said he had prayed to God that day to 
give his wife a new husband and his children 
a father; that God had heard his prayer 
and brought him out into a new life, pros- 
pered him, and brought him down where he 
could tell the other fellow how to find what 
he had found. 

To Ben this was amazing. Before it was 
through he jumped up and called out: 

"Tell that guy with the telephone to send 
word to heaven that I am coming," and he 
marched down the aisle. From a seat near 
the platform he heard a score or more of men 
tell other stories of salvation for the lost man, 
and when the invitation was given he knelt 
with several men at the altar. 

When the prayer of the publican had been 
explained to him, he hesitated, but finally 
cried out: "God be merciful to me a sinner, 
for Jesus' sake." At this the floodgates of 
his heart broke and he sobbed out his sorrow 
for the soul guilt. He had not shed a tear 



204 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

since he was a child. But He who can read 
all hearts looked down in this poor soul and 
touched it and healed it in loving-kindness. 
He whom they thought too tough a case had 
come face to face with his Saviour, and the 
case was not too tough for him. 

Several weeks passed before Ben really felt 
sure of himself. He knew he had not wanted 
to drink from the moment he knelt and began 
to cry to God for help, but he was ignorant 
and helpless and thought he could not win 
out against such odds. He had not learned 
yet that God could supply all his needs. 

One of his great burdens was that he could 
not read the Bible. He attended a Bible class 
regularly and committed to memory many 
helpful verses; these only made him long the 
more to delve into the treasures of the book. 
But his education had been more of the street 
than the schoolroom; what he had learned in 
the latter he had forgotten. In the prisons 
they do not encourage reading and long dis- 
use of the faculty, which never had been well- 
developed, had taken from him all his knowl- 
edge of words on the printed page. He sought 
diligently to learn, with the aid of those about 
the mission, but despaired of ever being able 
to read. One night a teacher expounded a chap- 
ter and Ben declared that he must read that. 



A MATTER OP POLITICS 205 

A comrade found the place for hini after he 
returned to the mission and Ben began to puz- 
zle over it; after a long struggle and with a 
little help he finished the chapter. So great 
was his joy that it seemed a miracle to him, 
and he is fond of telling how "God taught me 
to read." 

Falling in love with the book, Ben studied 
it constantly; before he had been converted 
a year he was enrolled in a Bible school, where 
he studied on certain nights during the school 
year. Then a way was opened whereby he 
might begin a course of study and practical 
work to fit him for evangelistic work among 
the men with whom he had once associated. 
The school is located in a Western city, which 
once was the scene of many of his exploits, and 
from pulpit and platform many times he has 
told of the change which has come over him, 
sometimes recognizing old pals in his audi- 
ences. 

And, while Ben is carrying the message of 
hope directly to many men and seeing large 
numbers turn to God through his efforts, in an 
indirect way he is influencing many thousands 
of others, for his conversion has taught all 
Christian workers who know of him that no one 
is ever too low for salvation and many a seem- 
ingly hopeless case is yearned over, fished for, 



206 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

and, thank God! in many instances won for 
the kingdom by the persistence inspired by the 
salvation of Ben. 

He has attended a number of conferences 
of missionaries and Christian workers, and 
his addresses, mainly the story of his conver- 
sion, bring tears and smiles alternately., and 
spur those who listen to renewed effort for 
the lost. 

No one knows what became of the man who 
invited Ben to the place where coffee and sand- 
wiches were served to hungry men. Doubt- 
less he was filled and went away less starved 
than when he came. But there is no question 
about Ben. Not only did he satisfy bodily 
hunger, but the Bread of Heaven came down 
to satisfy his hungry soul. 

He who stoned the mission has become one 
of its chief corner stones ; he who once brought 
trouble wherever he went, now is an evangel 
of peace; instead of being warned away by 
the police, they are glad to see the change 
and tell him so. Every time he walks through 
one of his old haunts, without uttering a word 
he preaches a more powerful sermon than 
most pastors can prepare; and if men would 
not believe the utterances of the preacher, they 
have no argument against Ben's life before 
them, and believe for the very work's sake. 



CHAPTER XXII 
Barroom to Bank 

Rayner had been handicapped in early life 
and there was less wonder that he drifted 
down the wrong course and had wound up in 
the very swirl of the maelstrom of drink. 
The wonder was that he had ever been rescued 
from its grip of death, which had fastened 
upon him. 

He had been apprenticed to a printer by 
his father when but a youth. Before he 
learned the trade his father changed his mind 
and took him from the shop and put him 
behind the bar of a family hotel, or boarding 
house, with saloon attachment, which a friend 
of the father conducted, and the two worked 
side by side. The father drank, but young Ray- 
ner, even while in the midst of it, kept free 
from it; drink amid such surroundings as 
were present was very repulsive. He loathed 
a drunkard and had no use for the stuff which 
made men drunkards. 

This was why he resolved to get away from 
the saloon and find more congenial daily com- 
panions. His former employer, the printer, 
had been fond of the boy, and a hint that the 

207 



208 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

latter was ready to come back to the shop 
brought a hearty invitation to start in again. 
So he learned his trade, after all, and for thir- 
teen years continued in the man's employ. 

With other young companions Eayner joined 
a local militia company for the social life it 
afforded. Though he had once declared that 
he would never drink the stuff which made 
fools of men, at twenty-seven the social call 
induced him to abandon his resolve and in a 
purely social way he began to take an occa- 
sional drink because others did it. He did not 
care for the drink for itself. 

Eayner went into business for himself sev- 
eral years later, but drink and cards obtained 
such a hold upon him, and were so dominant 
in his life, that his partner at last announced 
that Eayner must either buy or sell. He sold 
and went to work for a lithographing com- 
pany in another city, as superintendent, at 
one hundred dollars a week. He did not stop 
drinking, but tried to be respectable about it. 
There were periodical lapses, and then one 
day he awoke in a hotel on the Pacific Coast 
after a debauch and had to inquire where he 
was. 

His advertisement for work in a trade 
journal was recognized by the firm he had 
left and he was telegraphed money with which 



BARROOM TO BANK 209 

to return and was put on his feet again. For 
three years he held out; then came another 
spree and he quit. He never held a job long 
after that. Like many another, he would work 
until he had a little money and then proceed 
to spend it in drinking, until finally no one 
who knew his reputation would hire him, and 
those who did not know found out speedily. 

He had come to the great city where the mul- 
titude of printing shops made it easier to earn, 
by a day or two of labor, enough to keep him 
in drink the other days. He lived in a lodg- 
ing house and dined on free lunch or at the 
cheap restaurants when he had money; at 
other times he stopped in a park, or, in cold 
weather, in some all-night saloon. 

Back in his prosperous days he had married 
a lovely woman of his home town, but she 
had been left by Rayner over and over when 
on a spree; she scarcely would have known 
him in his condition at this period, and she 
did not know where he was. He got so he 
could not work and then he went to live in 
the back room of a saloon; that is, he slept 
there and subsisted on the drinks and free 
lunch when he could raise the price, or when 
some generous person shared with him. 
Often, however, he did not have the nickel 
necessary to insure him a chair in the back 



210 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

room at one o'clock in the morning, when the 
doors were locked and had to pass out into 
the night and seek shelter elsewhere. 

Early one Sunday morning, after such a 
night, he had gone back to the saloon at six 
o'clock, when the side door was opened, hop- 
ing that he would find some kindly disposed 
person there who would take pity on him and 
buy the drink he craved. Eayner had spent 
many dollars there and felt that he had some 
right to hang around until better days came; 
worse could not come to him. As he entered 
the door and went down the dark hall to 
the inner door, he was but half way within 
when a hand was laid on his shoulder, accom- 
panied by the declaration: "Now, old man, 
I don't want you here any more. You are a 
disgrace to the place." 

Eayner was not old, even by the Osier scale, 
but he was so beaten and battered by sin that 
he looked like an old man and by reason of his 
life he felt like one. He was dirty and un- 
kempt, his clothing consisted of an under- 
shirt and a pair of overalls, relievers from a 
slop shop, where his other clothing, includ- 
ing shirt and suspenders, had been sold for 
a few pennies so that he might buy drink. 
His shoes were tied on with cords, to complete 
the dilapidation, and another cord served as 



BARROOM TO BANK 211 

belt to keep trousers and undershirt from 
parting company. 

The saloon man was too wise to use violence 
in ejecting Rayner; he was careful that no 
harm came to him within his walls; that 
might attract the attention of the police. But 
he would not have given a second thought to 
it if Rayner had dropped in his tracks out on 
the sidewalk. Rayner looked up at the man, 
wondering if it could be true that his last 
hope — his final harbor — was to be taken from 
him. 

Unsteadily he walked through the dark 
hallway of the dive and out to the corner, and, 
as the rays of an October sun filtered down 
through the lattice work of the elevated rail- 
road, he asked himself what more there could 
be in life for him. 

"If I am a disgrace to that place, surely I 
am to my family/' he argued. "Then there's 
no use of living. I might as well end my life." 

As he stood against a pillar deliberating 
what he should do, feeling that he had reached 
a critical point in his life — his home gone, 
friends gone, everything worth while gone, 
hope itself dying within him — he felt that 
there was no way he could turn out of his 
dilemma and that life had nothing further left 
for him. To every question he asked himself, 



212 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

the tempter answered with the words which 
have come to many thousands in their despair : 
"Go to the river." 

"Well, I will; I'll go down there and finish 
the job," was the response of the baffled soul, 
beaten in a fight with the world and its allure- 
ments — and sin. Lost ! 

Unsteady still, he went, never a doubt in his 
mind that this was the only possible way of 
ending a rum-sodden existence, which long 
had ceased to be living. Quietly, but in ear- 
nest as never before in his life, he staggered 
along, thinking of his decision, wondering 
what the sensation would be and conscious 
that soon all would be over ; but a few minutes 
and the world would be rid of an "undesir- 
able." 

Down the street he moved to where the tide 
flows swiftly just beyond the end of the coal 
dock. Had heaven hidden away the watch- 
man? Was there no hand to stay the passion 
for suicide? Passion it had become in the 
half a dozen blocks he had dragged his lagging 
feet; for, as he shambled along, he had medi- 
tated : "Yes, you are a disgrace to everybody. 
You have reached the limit and it is time for 
you to drop out of sight forever; no one will 
be the wiser, and the world will be better off 
without you." 



BARROOM TO BANK 213 

There had come also snatches of the past; 
of its bright boyhood and promising young 
manhood; of the successes and failures and 
successes again in maturer years ; of the home 
and wife and family, who knew not where he 
was; of his awful, lost condition. Surely the 
world were better off without such. 

Without interruption he slunk down the 
dock, wriggled through a gate and paused on 
the outer edge of the pier. In a moment a 
few bubbles on the tide would mark the spot 
where he had sunk and all would be over. 
This was his thought; but while he hesitated 
the watchman had detected the intruder, 
stopped him with a cry of alarm, and ran to 
the place. Catching the old man by the arm, 
he remonstrated: "Say, old man, this is no 
place for you. If my boss found you here I 
would lose my job." 

Wondering why a poor, forlorn man was 
denied even the right to die, the old man was 
hustled off the dock. By impulse he turned 
back up the street and as he reached a 
corner noticed the sign of a mission hall. But 
surely no mission would admit such an one, 
he said. He knew not that this mission ex- 
isted for just such men as himself. 

All that Sunday he lounged on a warehouse 
platform opposite the mission. During the 



214 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

afternoon he noticed a large crowd enter the 
place. Some of them were well attired, some 
almost as forlorn as himself, but he noticed 
that nearly all walked with head erect, token 
of hope and life, and he wished that he might 
be like them. 

Toward nightfall a sympathetic youth 
brought him a nickel, saying: "Old man, you 
look tired out. Buy something to eat or drink 
and then come back to the mission." 

A drink was bought, but it did not give 
him courage to enter the mission that night. 
He walked the streets as he had the night be- 
fore, sleeping part of the night in a truck 
which was one of his homes. It was cold and 
he moved to the steps of a newspaper office, 
where some heat came up through a grating 
from the engine room. In the early morning 
a fireman climbed up a ladder from the 
depths and handed him a sandwich, remarking 
that he looked as though he needed it. He 
marveled that one would be so good to him 
and wondered if there was not something 
better for him — some way of escape. He 
remembered the kind words of the youth who 
gave him the nickel; here was another who 
seemed to care about him. 

When daylight came he wandered into the 
park, but, fearing arrest on account of his 



BARROOM TO BANK 215 

condition, he went down to the river again, 
where he could walk about and forget — if he 
only could forget ! That night he entered the 
mission. 

Songs that had been familiar in childhood 
were sung and Rayner tried to join in. He 
had been cordially received and felt at home. 
During the meeting men stood up all about 
him and told how they had been saved from 
lives of drunkenness and evil. 

He said to himself: "These men are telling 
about my life. I wonder if possibly there can 
be a chance for me." 

Not one of the men but had been in as bad a 
condition as he was at that moment; they 
said they had been drunkards and thieves be- 
fore they came to the mission, and had been 
converted — by God's grace. If it were true, 
it was the thing he had been looking for. 

When the invitation was given he went for- 
ward and knelt and prayed for the first time 
in twenty years. He asked God to save him 
if it were not too late. His appeal reached 
the ear of the Almighty and from that moment 
all things had become new. When he arose 
from his knees his load was gone ; he had been 
born again in a twinkling, becoming a new 
man in Christ Jesus, and from that instant he 
has never wanted a drink. He had the con- 



216 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

sciousness that never again would he need to 
go to the back room of the saloon from which 
he had been thrust, as one who disgraced the 
dive. 

With a bed ticket — for the mission workers 
know what it means to get between sheets, 
even though it be in a lodging house, after 
nights spent in street or park, with no chance 
to rid oneself of clothing for a brief period — 
and with a ticket for a five-cent meal in the 
morning, the outcast went forth, friendless no 
longer, since he had found the Friend of 
friends. There was no mark of change in the 
outward appearance, but within had flowed 
the crimson stream which cleanseth the sins 
of the whole world. A newborn babe of the 
kingdom went from the mission with an invi- 
tation to return the next morning, and he was 
there early. 

Newfound friends helped him on the way to 
strength and to securing presentable clothing. 
The following night a trembling testimony told 
of one day's freedom from rum and sin. 

Very soon he was in the employ of a large 
printing firm as superintendent, and steadily 
advanced until he was put in charge of the 
printing plant of a large corporation, at a 
high salary. While in this position he helped 
to organize a national bank in the city where 



BARROOM TO BANK 217 

he was employed, and finally was induced to 
become its president. This was within five 
years of the time when he entered the mission 
helpless, hopeless, and undone. 

Rayner had been very active in the affairs 
of the mission, and had gone about speaking 
in its behalf, and also wherever he could get 
a chance to tell drunkards that there was 
hope for them. He had spoken from the pul- 
pit of many churches in the city where he 
lived, telling of his past and urging the church 
members to help the missions and to reach out 
for their fallen brothers. His activity was 
destined to bring to him a severe test. 

When he was elected president of the bank 
he did not cease his mission work; he was in 
greater demand than ever. A bank president 
who had come up from the depths was a 
novelty. Soon some of the bank directors 
asked if this were wise, and urged Rayner to 
cease telling of his past. 

"It will not do the bank any good," said 
one of them. "People do not understand this 
matter as we do. We have confidence in you, 
but now that you are in a place where you are 
handling other people's money you had better 
forget the past in favor of the present — and 
future." 

Rayner did not cease, however, for he felt 



218 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

that he owed to his Saviour every spare mo- 
ment. The friction continued, and then Bay- 
ner did what they could not force him to do : 
he had an overpowering majority of the 
directors with him, had been elected by the 
stockholders, and so was not amenable 
to the directors, but lest some one who did 
not know the power of God might get scary 
and imperil other depositors, who had in- 
trusted to his care nearly one million dollars, 
Eayner resigned. His friends could not un- 
derstand his voluntary retirement, but when 
they learned that it was because his new reli- 
gion had taught him to give in meekly and 
trust in God, they said, "Now we know beyond 
all peradventure that his religion is the real 
thing." 

Kayner at once was made president of a 
manufacturing concern of large promise, per- 
haps even larger than the bank, in a financial 
way, and he still is telling the story. 

Long before this his wife had been restored 
to him and he had established a home, earned 
by himself, with its comforts, and it has be- 
come a center of helpful ministration. 

From sinking sands he lifted me — 
With tender hands he lifted me — 
From shades of night to plains of light, 
O, praise his name, he lifted me. 



CHAPTEE XXIII 
Tacks Versus Taxes 

He had walked into a shop to beg a few 
tacks with which to mend his shoes, for the 
soles had parted company with the uppers for 
much of the way around. He was cold and 
hungry and it goes without saying that he was 
dry — that condition was perennial. You 
would have classed him as a hopeless hobo had 
you seen him sitting in a park in a Canadian 
city, trying to drive in the tacks with a cob- 
ble stone for a hammer. 

If he possessed anything worth having, ex- 
cept life, it was not apparent from his appear- 
ance. He had a tremendous thirst, it is true, 
but that was hardly an asset. He had not a 
friend, not a penny, no home — nothing; there 
was not even a friendly saloon where he could 
hang out, for such things are found in Canada 
only where the "States" idea has been in- 
troduced. One thing was certain : he had no 
hope of ever being any better. 

Sandy had come from "within a mile o' 
Edinboro town," and in his youth and young 
manhood had been given advantages that 
others of his age did not have, and when 

219 



220 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

school days were over was put in a business 
which had been in the family a century or 
more, to which he was expected to succeed 
when the father should pass on to his reward. 
His mother was an earnest Christian who 
strove to have her boy become a shining light 
in the "auld kirk"; but a shadow came over 
the young man — he learned to drink. 

Had Sandy been content with an occasional 
"wee drap," he would have been but little dif- 
ferent from the majority of his companions, 
by the custom of the land, but he was not an 
ordinary young man. He did nothing by 
halves, even his drinking. The old folks were 
grieved beyond measure at his waywardness 
and pleaded with him again and again to let 
the cursed stuff alone, but, try as he would, 
he was unable to do so. Eventually he turned 
a deaf ear to their appeals. He could see no 
way of doing what they wanted, so what was 
the use of trying? 

He was continually disgracing his family, 
and there came a time when they felt it was 
no longer endurable. 

"If you will go away," they told him, "we 
will give you enough to start life over in 
Canada or the States, but we can't have you 
around here any longer." 

That was why Sandy landed in a city on 



TACKS VERSUS TAXES 221 

the Saint Lawrence, several weeks later, well 
fitted out and with a comfortable roll of 
money in his pocket. Letters of introduction 
secured him employment, and for a time he 
kept straight ; the sea voyage had helped some, 
and his resolution not to get drunk again 
was responsible for an effort to do right. 
But it was not long before Sandy was going 
a merry pace again, and not much longer be- 
fore he found that he was not wanted as an 
employee. The descent to the park was swift. 

As he sat in the park that Sunday after- 
noon he thought over the past and wondered 
what the future had in store. He did not care 
much what did come. He felt that he had lost 
out. Many thoughts ran through his mind 
as he labored to bring sole and upper into 
cordial relations once more, and there came 
over him a great longing for something he 
could not have defined. He saw well-dressed 
men and women walking to church with their 
children, happy and provided with all they 
needed, while he was a tramp, needing every- 
thing and finding nothing. If he only could 
lead a good life like those he saw — and then, 
also, if only he could get the price of a drink 
somewhere. 

In this his attitude was not different from 
thousands of men who desire to be rid of the 



222 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

effects of their sin, but want to continue in 
the enjoyable part of it, losing only its misery 
and woe. They are unwilling to give up the 
pleasures of sin even while deploring the 
depth into which sin has driven them. 

A missionary once told a great audience of 
men that a "whole lot of you fellows don't 
stop drinking because you don't want to. A 
lot of you, if you thought you were going to 
be converted and never want another drink, 
would make a stampede for the door." There 
is hope for every man who wants deliverance 
badly enough to pay the price. 

After church was over a young man went 
through the park, stopping here and there to 
speak to a man. As he approached Sandy he 
greeted him pleasantly and handed him a card. 
When it had been read Sandy knew that a 
meeting for men was to be held in the Young 
Men's Christian Association rooms a little 
later, to which he was invited. He had not 
supposed he was welcome anywhere. 

"That's the place for me," he said to him- 
self, and when the time for the meeting drew 
near he arose to go. Much rather would he 
have sat still, for he was weary, stiff, and 
sore from sleeping outdoors, and his dissipa- 
tion had made him feel as decrepit as a man 
of sixty. He could hardly move along the 



TACKS VERSUS TAXES 223 

street and was glad he had only a short dis- 
tance to go. 

Sandy sat through the service, hearing 
hymns that reminded him of home, and a sal- 
vation talk which gripped him. Then he lis- 
tened to the story of a man like himself, but 
who had become a new creature through the 
power of God. 

He sat as in a dream, wondering if it could 
be true, if, after all, he had not misunderstood 
things before, vaguely hoping that it was not 
too late to change even yet. When the invi- 
tation was given for those who desired to start 
the Christian life to arise, Sandy jumped up 
quickly. He always described his experience 
in that hour in this manner: "The minute I 
got on my feet a great change came and my 
heart was filled with heavenly joy. When I 
came in I was like an old man, hardly able to 
walk; when I went out I felt like a young 
man again and as though I could run twenty 
miles, if need be." 

Very soon he had employment. A former 
employer, when told of the change in the life 
of Sandy, gave him something to do, and in 
course of time he prospered as never before. 
He had not wanted a drink from the moment 
he had stood up to declare himself a Christian, 
was a member of one of the bier churches of 



224 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

the city and, instead of being a park "bum," 
he was respected by all. 

A severe test came a year or two after his 
conversion, when an employer called upon him 
to put through a business deal which would 
have been dishonest. After praying, Sandy 
declined to do it and was discharged and 
derided for his stand in the bargain. When 
he secured a place with an opposition house, 
the old boss tried to secure his discharge there 
by innuendo, but was unsuccessful. He had 
the satisfaction later of having the old boss 
come to him and beg him to come back, apolo- 
gizing for the slurs and the trouble he had 
sought to make. 

In the course of time Sandy started a busi- 
ness of his own, which extends to several other 
large cities, and has built up the most prosper- 
ous business of its kind in the country. He 
owns much real estate in the city where he 
once was a park habitue, and has amassed a 
comfortable fortune, though he has given lib- 
erally to the Church and religious interests. 

While he has been gaining wealth, Sandy 
has not forgotten the source of it all, nor has 
he forgotten that other men are as ignorant 
as he once was of the fact that there is a 
method by which they may get rid of the in- 
cubus which weighs them down. Therefore 



TACKS VERSUS TAXES 225 

he constantly is going to the missions and 
other places where he has an opportunity to 
tell of his redemption. He has been an invalu- 
able ally to more than one leader in rescue 
work, while the number of individual men he 
has helped lift up and start on the way to 
heaven will never be known until the ac- 
counts are squared "in that day." 

He has put himself, his time, and his money 
into Christian work with gladness, and has 
found that it was a profitable investment in 
many ways; spiritually it has made a heaven 
on earth; he has laid up treasures where 
thieves break not in and steal ; he has brought 
joy into many other homes, and not the most 
important, but equally interesting has been 
his material prosperity. He pays taxes on a 
long list of properties, and tells with pride 
how Jesus took him when an outcast and made 
him rich that God may be glorified and sinners 
be converted. 

From the same town in Scotland came Wal- 
lace, whose drinking disgraced his parents so 
that they shipped him to America, where a 
brother had established himself. Though he 
had promised the mother he would not drink 
any more, he slipped a bottle of whisky in each 
of his suitcases and had a fine spree on ship- 
board until the liquor was gone. 



226 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

Drink had prevented him from making suc- 
cess at anything in this country, though he 
had tried many lines, and it brought him down 
so low that he was glad to get anything, even 
as cook, waiter, or dishwasher in a restaurant, 
but could not hold any of them. He married 
a Christian girl, but they separated several 
times because of drink, the wife earning her 
own way in a factory. 

He had just come from the workhouse, 
whither he had been sent to sober up and be- 
come able to support himself. He had been in 
a fight and his jaw was broken and bandaged, 
his clothing had been pieced out at the work- 
house, and was meager; his shoes were those 
furnished by the prison. He had slept a night 
or two in a park, had found old friends who 
bought him drinks, and his condition was 
deplorable as he came into a mission hall for 
the first time, looking for the food and drink 
served there. He was a picture of woe, a fact 
commented upon by a number of visitors ; but 
he drank in the songs and testimonies as 
eagerly as he had consumed the coffee and 
sandwich. That night he went forward and 
called upon God to save him. 

Next day he found work, and ere long — 
just before Thanksgiving, it was. — he had 
saved enough to buy a turkey and started to 



TACKS VERSUS TAXES 227 

find his wife. He waited on a corner near the 
factory until she came out. Of course she 
would not believe him, but he walked home 
with her, talking the matter over, and gave 
her the turkey, agreeing to come and see that 
it was cooked. Very soon they were reunited 
and have never been separated since. Wallace 
has had many slips, but he has always come 
back, and Satan has little chance of winning 
the persistent one. 

Several years after his conversion the aged 
parents crossed the Atlantic to see the place 
where Wallace had been reborn. Previously 
they had heard from visitors to Scotland of 
the change in their boy and could not with- 
stand the yearning to see him and the mis- 
sion. He was able to point out exactly the 
spot where he had knelt, and there the little 
family party lifted up their hearts to God in 
thanksgiving for a salvation which is able to 
raise the fallen. 

Tamas was another Scotch boy who became 
a drunkard on the other side and abused the 
confidence of his family until they shipped 
him to America. The family was in com- 
fortable circumstances, the father in trade, 
and Tamas was his assistant ; after he became 
a hard drinker he frequently took from the 
cash drawer enough money to go away on a 



228 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

long spree. When this could be stood no 
longer they sent him away. 

In America he went the pace that kills until 
he was down and out, unable to hold a place 
as a waiter or even dishwasher, for he had 
gravitated into the restaurant business. He 
was going along the street one night and, see- 
ing a former companion standing on a chair 
speaking, noticed that there was something 
unwonted about him and stopped to listen. He 
heard the story of his conversion and was 
forced to believe the evidence before his eyes. 
That night he started to live the new life him- 
self, has prospered and persevered, and is on 
the high road to heaven. He is a singer of the 
gospel, as well as an exponent of the salva- 
tion message for the lost, and his sweet Chris- 
tian character has won many friends for the 
one-time outcast. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
Bread Line to Breadwinner 

You would know that Mac was patient and 
faithful the moment you came in contact with 
him, but you would never suspect him for a 
man with a "past/' for his calm and steadfast 
ways would indicate that he had been plod- 
ding along the narrow path from the very be- 
ginning. Nevertheless, a few years ago Mac 
was found in the bread line and invited to 
come and partake of the bread of heaven. 

He came from the North of Ireland, where 
Protestantism reigns, and, like all boys of 
that section, godly parents strove to direct 
him into the right paths. He was still a young 
man when he landed in America to seek 
the fortune denied him by circumstances 
in his homeland. Unfortunately, he had 
learned to drink, and the Scotch-Irish work- 
ing classes among whom he lived were fond 
of "a little sup," and ere long Mac learned to 
love it too. 

It was not drink alone which brought him 
to the bread line, but that probably was at 
the bottom of all his hard luck. He stood 
bowed with the weight of care, ragged, dirty, 

229 



230 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

penniless, friendless; on his face the sodden 
look of the hopeless drunkard. A woman mis- 
sionary, traversing the line waiting for coffee 
and bread to be distributed, saw that he was 
not one of those who are in the line night after 
night, and year after year, for that matter, and 
spoke to him. Though she received little en- 
couragement, she told him where there was a 
free supper the following night. 

Probably Mac was the most hopeless case 
among the more than four hundred homeless 
ones there. A great number of them went for- 
ward for prayers at the close of the service, 
Mac among the number, though he was a re- 
luctant seeker. He was the last one who 
would have been selected as the lone leper 
to return with thanks, but prayer was an- 
swered that night, and God heard the cry and 
the word of pardon was whispered. 

What a wonderful alchemy is salvation, 
which takes in base metal and turns it out 
pure gold! Mac was soon recognized to be 
firmly landed on the Eock, and his regularity 
with presence and testimony gained him the 
title "Old Faithful," which he held until he 
earned that of "The Evangelist from the Sub- 
urbs." 

But if his load of sin had disappeared, it 
seemed as if he was fated to have a continuous 



BREAD LINE TO BREADWINNER 231 

performance of trouble. Without a trade or 
education, little was open to him except work 
as a laborer. He has never attained to em- 
ployment of a very remunerative character, 
and his faithfulness has been tested by the 
most trying circumstances; yet in the midst 
of his adversities, Mac has stood firm. Yes, 
he has done more, for out of his poverty he 
has helped others, and his regular attendance 
at his spiritual birthplace has been an inspira- 
tion to the leaders and workers when the ad- 
versary hit one after another of the converts. 
Old Faithful there, he was saved, and, seeing 
what God had done for him, fresh courage 
came for the fight. 

After a time he secured steady employment 
with a large corporation in a suburban city. 
He found a mission the first week and soon 
became one of its workers; but he reserved 
Saturday night for the mission where he was 
saved, and that night without Mac would be 
lacking in power to many. 

He found entrance to the churches of the 
neighborhood for many miles around also, 
and told there of the salvation which had 
come to him. He had a happy gift of telling 
with remarkable directness how he had been 
led to God, and he has been a welcome visi- 
tor wherever he has gone. 



232 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

Kefreshing simplicity and humility have 
marked his Christian walk and conversation. 
No possible provocation could make him say 
aught against his neighbor, nor will he tolerate 
it in another. This one thing has made him 
beloved of his fellows. His employers believe 
in him; his fellow employees respect him; he 
is revered by many to whom he has pointed 
the way of salvation. He no longer haunts 
the bread line, for he is able to support him- 
self by the labor of his hands; nay, he has 
enabled many to keep from the bread line by 
his generosity, and has he not ministered unto 
three — himself, his fellow, and the Master? 

Fowler also came from the bread line in 
much the same manner, and, like Mac, justi- 
fied the labor of the missionary who went out 
at midnight to call men from the highways 
and hedges guests for the feast. Fowler was 
of a different type. He had come from London 
and had been started right in life, but gravi- 
tated to the gay life early. At eight he was 
in training for acrobatic performances in a 
noted music hall, not of the highest type. 
Its audiences were made up for the most part 
of drinking men, and the lad was encouraged 
to drain the glasses. It was thought to be 
smart to permit it; the lad thought he was 
making himself a man by learning to drink. 



BREAD LINE TO BREADWINNER 233 

Here he acquired a habit which wrecked his 
life for many years. 

His father had been a successful business 
man, as had his father before him, and Fowler 
was the successor, upon the death of his 
father. Had he been freed from his drink- 
ing, he might have been a well-to-do merchant 
to-day, but in a few years he ran through 
the entire fortune, and the business at last 
was lost, too; every penny he could get was 
spent for liquor. 

He came to America resolved to start anew 
and remain sober. His uncle had come over 
the ocean a number of years before and was 
a stevedore on the water front. Fowler was 
put to work as a longshoreman. His first 
week he made almost thirty dollars, and after 
paying his board spent the last penny at a 
resort then notorious as a sporting center. 
The next week the process was repeated. His 
sin had followed him across the water. 

Twenty-four years he was a longshoreman, 
foreman, or stevedore, drawing union wages 
when he was an employee, making more when 
he was the boss himself; but no matter how 
earned, the saloon received it all. Probably 
of all the types of a seaport the hardest set 
of men are the longshoremen. Working at 
high tension when there is something to be 



234 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

done, in the moments of relaxation from labor 
they take their pleasure as strenuously. They 
are not ordinarily vicious, but the brand of 
liquor they consume makes them "crazy 
drunk," and they fight and are boisterous. 
The tenements where they lodge are in con- 
stant uproar; their surroundings are de- 
graded, their women are as dissolute as them- 
selves ; their life is one of endless turmoil. 

But Fowler got beyond this stage, even, for 
he was drunk so much of the time that he 
could not earn bread for himself, let alone for 
a household. And so he got into the bread 
line. A Salvation Army lassie got hold of him 
first, led him from a street meeting to the 
hall, and then to the altar, where a start was 
made for the better life. For several years 
he was a faithful soldier, but his work kept 
him from the meetings, and in time he fell 
away. He went down lower than ever and 
the bread line again claimed him. 

He thought his case was hopeless; believed 
that after he had once fallen away God no 
longer cared for him. Supper night in a mis- 
sion lured him there, and one of the testi- 
monies, from a backslider, awakened hope 
once more and he went forward. Since then 
there has been no inducement strong enough 
to cause him to swerve* 



BREAD LINE TO BREADWINNER 235 

One night Alexander, the evangelist-singer, 
came to the mission. While conducting the 
music his ear caught a clear baritone and, 
selecting it from the many before him, he 
asked the owner to arise and sing the chorus 
of a song being learned by the men. It was 
Fowler, and thereafter he was in demand as 
a soloist at the mission. 

About a year later he joined the Salvation 
Army once more as a soldier, and night after 
night, on one of the downtown corners, his 
voice may be heard in song and testimony, 
repeated in the hall later. He has charge of 
the hall and frequently ministers to some of 
his old companions in the evil life. They all 
know of the change in his life and that he is 
a Christian indeed, for it stands out so that 
all may see. 

Though often urged to apply for a com- 
mission in the army, he has steadfastly de- 
clined to seek preferment, that he may remain 
among and try to help those with whom he 
once associated. He has learned to know the 
truth of the chorus he sang for Alexander 
and to apply the words to his own life: 

Lean on his arms, trusting in his love, 
Lean on his arms, all his mercies prove, 
Lean on his arms, looking home above, 
Just lean on the Saviour's arms. 



CHAPTER XXV 
A Prison Apostle 

No one familiar with the temperament of 
the thief could have failed to see in his fur- 
tive glances and shrinking manner, when he 
came to the mission, that he had been behind 
the bars. He bore the stamp of a man 
hounded by the police to the last stages of des- 
peration. As a matter of fact, this was the 
very thing which made him so welcome to the 
man at the door, a converted thief, who saw 
in the man his own condition a few months 
previous. 

Brink was on the way to the river when he 
heard music and was attracted to the meet- 
ing, which had just commenced. He was hard 
pressed by his past record, turned down every- 
where, hounded by the police, and unable to 
provide food or shelter for himself, unless he 
turned back to crime. He had spent twenty- 
two years altogether behind the bars for bank 
robbery; if it became a question of the river 
or another chance at prison, he felt that there 
was but one choice. 

He was not a drunkard — drank very little, 
in fact — for he knew that if he was to have 

236 



A PRISON APOSTLE 237 

a chance of escape after a crime he would 
need a clear head, and so he had foresworn 
intoxicants, except perhaps for an occasional 
drink. 

He had always felt, also, that he was not 
a common thief. Banks were in his line, but, 
somehow, the police or sheriffs got him, and 
his long prison life had brought the conviction 
that he was not much of a success as a bank 
burglar. He could get in the vaults, but 
could not get away afterward. 

He had just come from a Southern prison, 
where he had been caged up for a long term. 
After his release he had thought to get a 
fresh start in the North, where he was un- 
known, but he found that his record clung to 
him, and that no one wanted to employ a 
thief. 

"Once a thief, always a thief was what 
they hurled at him in some places where he 
sought work. Others felt sorry, but couldn't 
do anything for him. No one would trust him. 

When the small sum given him at the prison 
door had been exhausted he was in dire 
straits. He had been turned down so often 
that he was completely discouraged and so 
had turned toward the river. 

Twenty-five years before, almost to a month, 
he had been graduated from the University 



238 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

of Georgia, having been born in that State 
just before the Civil War. In college he 
learned to gamble, and by the time he was 
ready to go out into the world it had become 
a passion which mastered him. In a remark- 
ably short time he found himself a criminal. 
To recoup his losses he had turned thief and 
the bank at a Southern town was minus a 
large sum of money. He was traced, caught, 
tried, and convicted. 

His prison was a living hell on earth. For 
trifling infractions of the rules the lash, 
shackles, solitary confinement, the water cure 
and many other modes of torture were ap- 
plied to him, and he saw others receive even 
worse treatment. While he was confined his 
mother died, his last living friend, and be- 
tween grief for her and rage at the punish- 
ments inflicted upon him he became desperate. 
He emerged a hardened criminal. 

His liberty was but short, and again he was 
behind the bars ; again and again they caught 
him. He was looked upon as a confirmed 
criminal, though he had had but three years 
outside of jails to do all the things with which 
he was charged. 

This was the wreck of character which 
drifted into the mission. He heard songs he 
had heard in his childhood. 



A PRISON APOSTLE 239 

"This is no place for me," he meditated; 
"the likes of me is not wanted." 

Several times he started to leave, but some- 
thing held him and then a strange thing hap- 
pened which riveted him to the spot. A man 
told how he had been a thief and a drunk- 
ard and had been saved from that life, and 
he looked the part. Others told of their ex- 
periences, and while they talked hope began 
to bud and he wondered if there was a chance 
for him. 

When the testimonies were over a former 
highway robber and jail-breaker put his arm 
around Brink and led him to the mourner's 
bench, and he arose a free man. 

Within a year he spoke from a platform at 
one of the large universities in the North, 
and members of the faculty were so moved 
by his story that they organized a mission 
work for the down-and-outs and released pris- 
oners and put Brink in charge. During the 
four years he was superintendent the work 
grew to be very effective in reclaiming men. 
His stories of prison conditions in the South, 
as he had seen them from the inside, aroused 
no little discussion among reformers. There 
had been stories printed before, but their 
source had not been reliable; yet they had 
induced a number of men to form an asso- 



240 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

ciation to study the conditions and find means 
of remedying the evils discovered in the State 
corrective systems. The information pos- 
sessed by Brink attracted their attention and 
he finally was called to be secretary of the 
association and to direct its work. 

Thus from under the lash he had come, 
perhaps to abolish the lash in prisons; from 
the water cure to tell the people that it is 
effectual only when the Water of Life is 
used. He is expected to recommend to the 
various State governments measures which 
will alleviate the sufferings of prisoners un- 
der the present system — a prison apostle, 
whose work will last long after he has been 
forgotten by those he helps. 

Thomas, who greeted Brink at the mission 
and pointed the way of life to him, had been 
through long prison experience himself. He 
was a son of a saloonkeeper, who left consid- 
erable money at death. Thomas resolved to 
see the country. He had been traveling with 
a tough set in his native city, but he left them 
behind and became a "gentleman" when he 
went West. He thought he had enough money 
to last him forever, but in this he was mis- 
taken, for he came to the end of his money 
on the Pacific Coast. 

He turned highway robber, his gang ex- 



A PRISON APOSTLE 241 

perience fitting him best for that method of 
getting money. Success made him too bold, 
and the police sent him to the prison most 
hated by criminals, San Quentin, on San Fran- 
cisco Bay. He was released in eighteen 
months. There were other charges against 
him for holdups, but by some oversight he was 
allowed to depart from the prison. He made 
quick time into a neighboring State to avoid 
complications. 

Montana next claimed him and cared for 
him for five years in the State penitentiary. 
On his release he went to Washington, and 
the Tacoma jail soon held him on charges of 
robbery and burglary. While awaiting trial 
he broke the jail and turned all the prisoners 
loose with him. The authorities recaptured 
some of the men, but Thomas had made good 
his way out of the country. 

He next appeared at the State capital, 
where the police caught him for robbery. 
Once more he escaped, taking all the other 
prisoners along. In Seattle, the scene of his 
next exploit, while awaiting trial on two 
charges of highway robbery, he nearly escaped 
again, but was detected. He was sentenced 
to seven years in prison. 

A demon seemed to possess the man. Be- 
fore he had been in the State prison long he 



242 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

planned another escape. A railroad siding 
into the prison grounds provided means of 
switching in coal and supplies and taking 
out carloads of bricks, made by the prisoners. 
One day, when an engine was shifting cars 
within the prison, Thomas got into the prison 
yard, where the warden was superintending 
the work. Thomas seized the warden and 
used him as a shield while he carried his plan 
into effect. With two companions he cap- 
tured the switch engine, made the engineer 
and fireman dismount from the cab and gave 
the signal for a dash to liberty. 

One of his companions, who was supposed 
to know enough about a locomotive to run 
it a short distance, became confused by the 
uproar and excitement of the daring exploit. 
He pulled the reverse lever back instead of 
throwing it forward, and when the throttle 
was opened the engine ran further into the 
yard instead of crashing through the gate to 
the main line. Guards shot the two men with 
Thomas, but he escaped death and was sent 
to the dungeon for eighteen months, on bread 
and water most of the time, but not always 
getting even that. 

While he was in prison he heard of a mis- 
sionary who was glad to help a criminal to 
lead a different life. He emerged more dead 



A PRISON APOSTLE 243 

than alive from the "solitary" and returned 
to his native city, knowing that he did not 
dare stay in the West. On the way he recalled 
the missionary and sought him when home 
was reached. Lawlessness found an end in 
his life that night, for he gave himself to the 
great Lawgiver as the price of his eternal par- 
don and citizenship in the kingdom. 

From that time he entered the service of 
the Master and began to lead others to him. 
He never cared for any other employment, and 
God was pleased to call him into one and 
another branch of Christian work. He has 
been a city and prison missionary in another 
city for a number of years. 

Both men have developed into lovely Chris- 
tian characters, with the traces of the prison 
and the former desperate natures wholly re- 
moved. They can never repay those who suf- 
fered through them, but they are trying to 
prevent others from suffering by preaching 
the new life to the criminal classes. The 
saved thief on the cross is a favorite theme, 
and it has caused many another thief to plead 
for pardon from the same source. 



CHAPTEE XXVI 

Blind Eyes Made to See 

What time Billy had been an "old salt," 
he also had been, to use his own words, "an 
old soak," and it took long to remove both 
the bilge-water and water-front whisky odors 
after he was converted. 

He had sailed in and out of the port for 
many years, a typical seafaring man, hard- 
working when afloat, and good for nothing 
when ashore. The lodging house shipping 
office and the groggery claimed him most of 
the time he was in port, except when he had 
signed for the season; then he slept aboard, 
or lay around the saloon all night, spending 
the wages for which he had risked his life on 
the sea many times a day on some voyage. 

He was not so much to be blamed as pitied. 
He knew no better. Had not sailors done the 
same things for generations? Why should he 
set aside the traditions of the forecastle? He 
did as others of his calling did when off the 
deck. 

He had been born to the sea and had taken 
to shipping naturally as a youth, had been 
into many out-of-the-way corners of the globe 

244 



BLIND EYES MADE TO SEE 245 

before the mast, and there was every pros- 
pect that he would pass his days there, until 
a wave hurtled him into the churn of the sea 
during a storm, or a harpy of the docks laid 
him out for what money he had at the end 
of a voyage, and then tossed the body off into 
the river. This seemed to be the usual end 
of his calling, unless the ship struck a reef, 
or was cut down during a fog. 

It can hardly be said that Billy deplored 
his lot in life; he drank and cursed his way 
through the world with no thought of the 
future and no murmuring as to the present; 
the past was something to be forgotten; it 
would never be seen again by him, he figured. 
In his latter days aboard ship he had mar- 
ried and called the squalid tenement rooms 
home. Home got whatever the barkeeper did 
not; his wife's exertions kept her from starv- 
ing when the ship was on a long voyage. She 
had been favored with few opportunities in 
life, but she was a faithful wife, with a lean- 
ing toward religion, and she prayed, perhaps 
not possessing much faith that her prayers 
would be answered, even if the great God 
heard them. 

One of the diversions of the seamen about 
one part of the harbor was to spend an hour 
or two occasionally listening to a former river 



246 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

pirate who had turned religious and had meet- 
ings in a ramshackle building just back from 
the docks. It was considered sport for the 
sailors, when they had taken aboard the 
requisite amount of drink, to listen to the 
helpers of the pirate tell of their past lives 
and conversion; it was a good substitute for 
the cheap show. For this reason Billy found 
himself within the place more than once. 

As for taking heed to the exhortation of 
the leader or the others, such a course never 
entered his head. Some of them labored with 
him, but usually he was either too drunk or 
too sullen to be impressed. 

"I'm nothing but a drunken sailor and al- 
ways will be, I reckon," was all they could 
get out of him. But he continued to visit 
the place occasionally. 

"If I can only get men nibbling about the 
hook, I'm bound to get them in time," said 
the ex-pirate who had turned fisherman — for 
souls. 

One Sunday afternoon Billy was among 
the seekers. He never could tell just why, 
but there he was, to the joy of the fisher and 
to the effectual turning away from his evil 
ways for a time. He came back full, of course, 
after a trip; that had been expected, for the 
Evil One seldom permits so faithful a servant 



BLIND EYES MADE TO SEE 247 

to escape without several hard tussles, but 
he was landed at last and became a changed 
man. 

About the first thing which troubled him 
was that he could not read his Bible, and he 
set at it with the help of his wife to commit 
to memory verses he heard at the mission and 
others which she read to him. The more he 
learned the more he wanted to read these 
things himself, so the wife undertook his edu- 
cation in the alphabet and one-syllable words. 
No more hopeless task had ever been set be- 
fore her. Billy seemingly could not learn; 
he had almost no foundation in the rudiments 
of education and old eyes do not acquire skill 
easily. 

He had been employed as night watchman 
in one of the noted downtown banks and had 
a large amount of spare time on his hands, 
all of which he spent poring over his Bible, 
but unable to read a word of it. Longing be- 
came desperation, and he felt that his life- 
depended on his learning to read. 

One evening his wife read to him : "If any 
of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who 
giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not." 

"That surely means me/' he said; "I lack 
wisdom to read my Bible, and it says that God 
will teach me. I will ask him." 



248 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

"That night/' he often relates, "I said to 
myself that God must teach me to read. I 
went into the teller's cage and sot myself on 
a stool, opened my Bible before me and told 
God I'd never get off'n that stool till he 
teached me to read his Word. I guess he 
know'd I was determined and meant what I 
told him. 'T any rate, all of a sudden I see 
words stand out in the book and I began to 
read and I have always been able to read the 
Bible or anything else. If you don't believe 
it, come over to my house some time and Fll 
read whole chapters without ever looking at 
the page" 

Of course his story is always laughed at, 
not because men doubt that he can read, for 
usually he has previously demonstrated that, 
but at his quaint expressions. One can readily 
understand how his wife's teachings found 
fruitage under the strong spiritual stress of 
the old sailor, becoming to him a veritable 
miracle. Those who know him understand 
also why he can "read" without looking at the 
pages. He has read them over so many times 
that he knows them by heart — truly are they 
written upon his heart. 

He is still at the bank, faithful guardian of 
hundreds of thousands of dollars in the vaults, 
and never a dollar has been lost through him. 



BLIND EYES MADE TO SEE 249 

Ignorant? Yes, in arts, or sciences, or litera- 
ture as ordinarily meant, but is lie not versed 
in the greatest literature of all ages? Brown- 
ing and the Rubaiyat may be unintelligible to 
him, if he ever heard of either, but he lux- 
uriates in the matchless songs of David; he 
knows the history of the famous kings who 
changed the course of nations; the prophecies 
are his and the gospel message is upon his 
tongue. Ignorant? In the knowledge of the 
world, but he knows the secrets of high 
heaven and holds converse with the King, 
and the wisdom of the kingdom makes all 
the rest seem as foolishness unto this guile- 
less sailor. 

Of a different type was Gustav, who had 
left his native Deutschland because he drank 
too heavily to suit his people and had made a 
failure of everything. He could speak no 
word of English when he landed, and, as he 
lived among his countrymen and worked 
where English was rarely spoken, he made 
little progress in the language of the land. 
As long as he could make himself understood 
at the bar, it sufficed, and its language seems 
to be universal. Most people are^ understood 
too well there — for their own good. 

Gustav had not made any improvement in 
his habits in the land of his adoption, and it 



250 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

did not take a long time to make him, he de- 
clares, a "bum." The bakeries, the bread lines, 
the places where the willfully idle congregate 
found him often. He slept in trucks and 
parks for long, and finally took up his abode 
in a freight car on a siding, sleeping there all 
one winter. He was discovered and the watch- 
man swung his club menacingly and threat- 
ened to "knock his block off" if he did not 
leave his quarters in the railroad yard; then 
he went back to the parks. 

He heard a song while passing along a street 
one evening and crossed over to listen. To 
his surprise, he heard a man he had seen be- 
fore talking from a chair. But what the man 
said surprised him even more. He said there 
was hope for a drunkard, an outcast, or a 
thief. It interested him, for he could claim 
all three titles. As he listened it dawned upon 
him that there was something he had not 
learned while knocking about on two conti- 
nents; it was worth inquiring into. 

He was too far under the influence of drink 
to philosophize about it, but it reminded him 
that he was in an awful condition; here was 
a man who said that there was a way to get 
rid of evil conditions. He would hear more 
of it. 

He listened to what was said in the open- 



BLIND EYES MADE TO SEE 251 

air meeting and followed the crowd within 
the hall, where he heard more of the same 
kind of talk. He also heard that on some 
nights they gave away sandwiches and coffee 
at the mission. He had never heard of such a 
thing before. 

Of course he came back to get the "supper," 
for it was easier than begging. When he was 
fed he was in condition to listen to what was 
said. Then he decided that if half of what he 
had heard was really true, it was what he was 
looking for, and he went with others to kneel 
for prayer. 

He proved to be a good workman, when his 
nerves had been soothed and his body fed into 
strength, and soon he had a steady position. 
But he was not satisfied, as he heard others 
tell how much joy they had in reading the 
Bible and as he got a glimpse of its treasures 
at the meetings, so he prayed that God would 
teach him how to read it. He had never been 
able to read English — could scarcely speak it 
— but a friend began to help him pick out 
the words. It was an impossible task, it 
seemed to him, but God honors honest en- 
deavor always and he found a way, and now 
Gustav can read. If you were to ask him the 
news of the day, he would be likely to say: 
"I don't read the papers ; I've no time for such 



252 THE UNDERWORLD AND THE UPPER 

foolishness." But if you ask him the news of 
the kingdom, he will open his Bible to some 
precious promise and tell you that is the best 
news he ever heard. And he has found none 
to dispute him. 

Note. — For the information of those unfamiliar with the rescue 
mission field, it may be said that the larger number of the foregoing 
stories are of converts of the Old Jerry McAuley Water Street Mission, 
316 Water Street, New York city, and of the Hadley Rescue Hall, 
293 Bowery, New York city, to the superintendents of which may be 
addressed any communication concerning the work. 



BLIND EYES MADE TO SEE 253 

IS HOLDING OUT HIS HAND TO YOU i 

Written by a convert and dedicated to John Callahan, 
Superintendent of Hadley Rescue Hall. 

"When your life seems dark and dreary, 

Every hope from you has fled; 
When your heart and soul are weary, 

Every happiness long dead; 
Just remember there's a Saviour 

Looking down from heaven's blue, 
Watching o'er the strayed and fallen, 

Holding out his hand to you. 

Chorus 
He is holding out his hand to you, 
He will help you if your faith is true, 

To every sinner in the land 

Christ is holding out his hand, 
He is holding out his hand to you. 

When by friends you've been forsaken 

Left alone in sin and shame, 
Then your spirit must awaken 

To the glory of his name; 
There is hope for all his children, 

Every lost one gets his due, 
For the Lord above is beckoning, 

Holding out his hand to you. 

When at last the battle's ended, 

All the storms and strife now gone, 
Peace and joy in rapture blended, 

'Tis the birth of a new morn; 
Then your soul takes flight to glory, 

Filled with gladness thro' and thro', 
With his angels Christ is waiting, 

Holding out his hand to you. 



Used by permission. 



MAR 13 1912 








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